Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Kathy on February 10, 2006, 07:11:00 AM
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Travis Parker and Martin Lee Anderson, both 14 year old boys sentenced to the "program" by the state. Travis in Georgia and Martin in Florida. Both died in custody -- Updates on their situations @ http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html (http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html)
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Thanks Kathy. Site looks great! :wave:
Martin was arrested for joyriding in his grandmother's car while she attended church. Though she did not want to press charges, her grandson ended up at the military-style youth camp (earlier reports say he was court ordered), where, Barreiro and Gelber told The Miami Herald, he was "brutalized" by between six and eight officers.............
.............The bootcamp was built by Tunnell when he was sheriff of Bay County. Tunnell promoted many of those in charge. And now he's head of the agency investigating the teen's death.
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On 2006-02-10 04:11:00, Kathy wrote:
"Travis Parker and Martin Lee Anderson, both 14 year old boys sentenced to the "program" by the state. Travis in Georgia and Martin in Florida. Both died in custody -- Updates on their situations @ http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html (http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html)
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WOW. It hard to believe that HUGH STONE would rule against any program, even a preliminary ruling. Judge Stone is the signator of nearly all of Hidden Lake Academy's SLAPP suits against former employees and patients. I thought for sure whwn I saw the last article that these charges would be summarily dismissed.
Nice job, Kathy. And THANK YOU, Judge Stone.
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On 2006-02-10 04:11:00, Kathy wrote:
"Travis Parker and Martin Lee Anderson, both 14 year old boys sentenced to the "program" by the state. Travis in Georgia and Martin in Florida. Both died in custody -- Updates on their situations @ http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html (http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html)
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The guy that built the camp and promoted the sadists is now running the investigation????
HELLO!?!?!?!???? :eek: With soap, baptism is a good thing.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer
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Steve, both the state run school and HLA are in the same judicial district, called the Enotah Judicial Circuit. There are only 2 or 3 judges that operate in that district. One of them is Judge Stone. So it is not uncommon for Judge Stone to hear quite alot of cases in this area. He even heard my divorce case so he does hear quite a lot of different types of cases in this area. The Enotah district is comprised of 3 or 4 counties in North Georgia.
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On 2006-02-10 08:04:00, SHH wrote:
"Steve, both the state run school and HLA are in the same judicial district, called the Enotah Judicial Circuit. There are only 2 or 3 judges that operate in that district. One of them is Judge Stone. So it is not uncommon for Judge Stone to hear quite alot of cases in this area. He even heard my divorce case so he does hear quite a lot of different types of cases in this area. The Enotah district is comprised of 3 or 4 counties in North Georgia. "
What's your point?
It was curious to see Judge Stone, who normally rules in favor of programs, to let the trial for these murdering thugs go forward.
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On 2006-02-10 08:04:00, SHH wrote:
"Steve, both the state run school and HLA are in the same judicial district, called the Enotah Judicial Circuit. There are only 2 or 3 judges that operate in that district. One of them is Judge Stone. So it is not uncommon for Judge Stone to hear quite alot of cases in this area. He even heard my divorce case so he does hear quite a lot of different types of cases in this area. The Enotah district is comprised of 3 or 4 counties in North Georgia. "
So what? It's still interesting that someone who has previously ruled in favor of RTCs sit up and take notice. Too bad it took a kid dying for him to man up though.
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FDLE Press Release
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/press_relea ... erson.html (http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/press_releases/20060110_Martin_Anderson.html)
News Release
FDLE Investigates Death of Martin Lee Anderson
January 10, 2006
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is conducting an inquiry into the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson at the request of the Bay County Sheriff?s Office and the Department of Juvenile Justice. FDLE is responsible for determining the facts and circumstances surrounding the death. The Bay County Sheriff?s Department and the Department of Juvenile Justice are cooperating fully. The autopsy conducted by the Bay County Medical Examiner has ruled out trauma or injury as the cause of death. The Medical Examiner?s Office is awaiting toxicology results. The Honorable Steve Meadows, Office of the State Attorney, will review the facts and circumstances surrounding Anderson?s death once the FDLE inquiry is complete.
Anderson was committed to a Department of Juvenile Justice facility on Jan. 4 by court order. The Department of Juvenile Justice facility remanded Anderson to the Bay County Sheriff?s Office Boot Camp facility early Thursday morning. He was at the facility for approximately two hours before being transported by emergency medical services. He was taken from the Bay County Sheriff?s Office Boot Camp facility on Thursday, Jan. 5, to Bay County Medical Center. Anderson was later transported by air ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola. On Jan. 6, Anderson passed away.
As we do in all of our investigations, FDLE will conduct this investigation fairly and thoroughly. We offer our condolences to this young man?s family for their tragic loss.
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For more information, contact:
Karen Mason
Public Information Officer
FDLE - Pensacola
(850) 595-2100
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That's hard to believe that there were no injuries - his parents noticed bruising and blood coming out of his nose. I think there's a cover-up going on.
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On 2006-02-10 11:49:00, Anonymous wrote:
"That's hard to believe that there were no injuries - his parents noticed bruising and blood coming out of his nose. I think there's a cover-up going on. "
They said that injuries were ruled out as a cause of death. Semanitcs, I know. If that's true then the cause of death would probably be asphyxiation.
I have no doubt that there is an attempt at a cover-up. Jeb's staying as detached as he possibly can right now after hawking these places for years. Hopefully this time with a tape of the incident being available AND the fact that at least 6 people outside FDLE and the SO have seen it. Probably won't be any of the major changes we're looking for but maybe its a start at shaking some of these people out of their dreamland.
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Of course there is a cover up! They murdered two boys who broke no laws! This is against everything this country stands for.. cough... is supposed to stand for. Unbelievable this shit going on. What about all those abortion activists? Where are they? Pro-lifers... hey - kids are dying here!
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On 2006-02-10 12:02:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Of course there is a cover up! They murdered two boys who broke no laws! This is against everything this country stands for.. cough... is supposed to stand for. Unbelievable this shit going on. What about all those abortion activists? Where are they? Pro-lifers... hey - kids are dying here!"
USED to stand for. All we are now are subjects of a beaurocratsy of representatives elected by the people, but influenced by those with money - in other words, rich people, businesses, and political orginizations.
So its a beauro-plutocratic republic, in other words.
I really find it funny how we worship and mythify the rhetoric of freedom, and John Locke, the enligthenment and scientific revolution of the time period in which our nation came into being, but in reality now all we do is act like another apathetic, overgrown, too-settled established large nation thats starting to grow a little on the oppressive side.
If this keeps up, and theres no political turnover on 06 and 08, things could get interesting.
But, I degress - I only ranted because this is what spawned the way we treat children now. Break them and make them "respect authority" and do as told, because clearly an appointed beaurocrat knows better than Joe Public does about whats best for himself, and uppity independant kids that dont step in line need to be broken and beaten into submission.The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
--Edmund Burke
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This has been going on for a long time - It is hard to believe that things haven't changed much in the 21st century. They are still letting sadistic, perverted guards do as they please with incarcerated juveniles. The authorities look the other way and cover-up the abuse - and so on and so on. It will only end when they stop sending non-violent children who break the law into these horific boot camps. Why on earth did they send a first time non-violent offender to an in-your face boot camp? It doesn't make sence. This child should have been released to the custody of his parents. It just doesn't make any sense. It's so much like the movie "Sleepers" that took place in the 1960's. These boot camps attract sadistic pedeophiles who are there for their own lust.
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They are all reporting on Martin Lee Anderson's case, but of course they big dumb guard is going to shoulder all the blame. Unless we speak up, make lots of noise!
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They are all reporting on Martin Lee Anderson's case, but of course they big dumb guard is going to shoulder all the blame. Unless we speak up, make lots of noise! oh yeah, see the updates at http://kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html (http://kathymoya.com/FICA/index.html)
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Looks like the pressure is working. The tape is likely to be released soon...
In a statement on Friday, Tunnell said he is considering releasing the video with the images of other juveniles digitally obscured because of comments made by the legislators who viewed it. "The premature disclosure as reported in the press has skewed this normal process," he said. "We now fear that public perception will be based on hearsay rather than reality." He called the legislators' comments "premature at best" and "irresponsible at worst." [/b]
http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 849637.htm (http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/breaking_news/13849637.htm)
Parents demand answers in son's boot camp death
MELISSA NELSON
Associated Press
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Martin Lee Anderson played basketball and hung out with other kids in this hardscrabble neighborhood of barred windows and attack dogs that surrounds the cemetery where he was buried last month.
He made the honor roll last year and had not been in serious trouble before he and four cousins were arrested last June for taking their grandmother's Jeep Cherokee from a church parking lot and crashing it.
Although 14-year-old Anderson wasn't the driver, he was charged with grand theft. Other problems followed, including suspension from school and an arrest for trespassing.
On Jan. 5, he was admited to the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp. Two South Florida legislators who have seen a video tape of his last conscious moments say he was brutally beaten by guards who kicked and punched him.
Anderson's death has led some state leaders to demand changes at Florida's military-style boot camps.
Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, who viewed the video last week said it shows a brutal beating.
"Even toward the end of the videotape, where you could just see there was pretty much nothing left of Martin, they came out with a couple of cups of water and splashed him in the face," Barreiro said.
"When you see stuff like that you just want to go through the TV and say, 'Enough is enough. Please stop hitting this kid," he said.
Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, a former federal prosecutor, also expressed outrage after viewing the tape, and said he did not think there was any question that excessive force was used.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen released a statement calling Barreiro and Gelber "loose cannon politicians," and said the two made "irresponsible premature and incorrect statements."
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has said Barreiro and Gelber were allowed to view the tape because they serve on the Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee. Several members of Gov. Jeb Bush's staff also were allowed to view the tape.
But Anderson's parents, Gina Jones and Robert Anderson, have not been allowed to see the last conscious moments of their son's life.
"No human being on this earth should go through what my son went though. I just wish they could have done me like that instead of it being him," Robert Anderson said.
Anderson's family wants the video of his admission to the camp made public, but FDLE has refused to release the tape, saying it is part of the ongoing investigation. "I feel I need to see it. I feel I should be the one to see it," Anderson said.
The highly rated Bay County program for juvenile offenders was developed by Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy M. Tunnell when he was Bay County sheriff.
In a statement on Friday, Tunnell said he is considering releasing the video with the images of other juveniles digitally obscured because of comments made by the legislators who viewed it. "The premature disclosure as reported in the press has skewed this normal process," he said. "We now fear that public perception will be based on hearsay rather than reality." He called the legislators' comments "premature at best" and "irresponsible at worst."
Jones recalled dropping her son off at the camp, when he said he would do whatever it took to succeed. She said she will always regret promising him as they parted that things would be OK for the next six months. "What was my baby thinking when he was down on the ground and they were doing those things to him? Was he thinking that 'my mom said it would be OK' when they had their knees in his back?" Jones said.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office has said Anderson collapsed after he was restrained by guards while doing push ups and other exercises that were part his admission to the camp. The medical examiner for Bay County is awaiting toxicology reports before releasing his findings. He has said trauma did not appear to be the cause of death.
In several news conferences since her son's death Jones has appeared holding pictures of him smiling or playing basketball. Last week, she carried a picture of him laying in a coffin in a suit.
"This is my baby the day before his 15th birthday," she said weeping. She said doctors told her that her son's kidneys and liver were too badly damaged from what happened to him at the camp to be donated. Anderson told The Associated Press that he is dealing with his son's death by keeping his anger under tight control. "There is so much I want to say but I know it wouldn't be good right now," he said, standing on the street in front of his home, which is just a block a way from the cemetery where his son is buried. Jones lives in the same neighborhood several blocks away and her mother also lives nearby. Martin Anderson lived with his mother. Anderson works for a moving company and said he had talked with his son about his plans to get his own truck and have his son ride along with him. He said the boy was excited about the plan. "Now he'll be with me in spirit only," he said. Anderson walks over to the cemetery every day and looks at the collection of plastic flowers and dried roses that cover his son's still unmarked grave. Jones said she tries to show her anger when she talks about her son in public, but when she's alone she remembers her last moments with him and she cries.
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ABC affiliate in Jax has a video report (http://http://www.firstcoastnews.com/video/player320.aspx?aid=60993&bw=). Unfortunately not THE video, but their report.
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BACKGROUND OF GUARDS, NURSE
The Bay County Sheriff's Office has released the identities and some documents on seven guards and the nurse involved in the Martin Anderson incident. The 14-year-old boy died hours after an altercation with guards at the juvenile boot camp run by the sheriff's office in Panama City. The files of those involved are incomplete in some parts and conflict with other official accounts.
? Henry L. McFadden, 32, was hired in November 2004 as an entry-level drill instructor. One of the newest hires, his file is sparse, peppered with a few comments about his responsibility and good decision-making abilities. Prior to working at the camp, he racked up a host of medals in the Air Force from 1993 to 2004.
? Charles Steven Enfinger, 32, was hired in May 2003 as an entry-level drill instructor. He was an employee of the month in May 2004 and has consistently earned sparkling reviews as one who ''stays on schedule and motivates the offenders well.'' In his file, though, the sheriff's office blacked out a paragraph concerning his crime history. A car enthusiast and hunter, he noted in his file that he restored a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle and has ``harvested a few very respectful whitetail deer.''
? Patrick Tate Garrett, 29, was hired in February 2000 as an entry-level drill instructor. He was employee of the month in June 2004 and has good reviews but was twice suspended without pay for a day for incidents that are not spelled out in his file. Garrett was commended for performing the Heimlich maneuver to save a choking inmate. He served in the Army from 1996-1999 and was honorably discharged. Though it's not in his file, The Herald has learned he was suspended for three days in 2004 for not seeking medical attention for a youth who accused him of smashing his face into the ground.
? Joseph Lawrence Walsh, 34, was hired as an entry-level drill instructor in May 2002. He was employee of the month in February 2004 and September 2005. He earned solid reviews from superiors and was described as ''cool, calm, low key'' by a friend in a recommendation. He served in the Air Force from 1989 until 1998, when he was honorably discharged.
? Henry Leslie Dickens, 59, has worked at the boot camp since 1995 and holds the rank of administrative drill instructor. He was commended for working yearly at the Martin Luther King Community Center, and once received a personal letter from a former inmate who thanked him and two other drill instructors for putting him on the right track. In March 2001, he was reprimanded for letting a civilian use his badge. He served in the Navy from 1987-1995 and was honorably discharged.
? Charles William Helms, 50, is an upper-level drill instructor who was hired in December 1993. In 1998, then-Bay County Sheriff Guy Tunnell called him a ''great asset'' in a letter of commendation. He was employee of the month in February 2003. In October 1997, he was reprimanded for sloppy police work in connection with a kidnapping investigation, and was suspended for five days without pay in April 2005 in an apparent dispute with his supervisor. He served in the Army from June 1975 until December 1993 and was honorably discharged.
? Raymond Morris Hauck, 47, was hired in 1995 as an entry-level drill instructor. His file is full of praise from supervisors and he was employee of the month in May 2001. Hauck and two others were commended for helping Panama City fire crews help people avoid injury when their house burned across the street from the boot camp.
? Kristin Anne Doward Schmidt, 52, was hired in June 1994 as the boot camp nurse and has repeatedly won merit raises. In one review, a supervisor noted that ``if a mistake is made, she will accept it, and corrections are normally made immediately. This helps with the little things turning into big things.''
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Forgot the link. http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13845110.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13845110.htm)
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13844383.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13844383.htm)
Posted on Sun, Feb. 12, 2006
It's old news that boot camps are bad news
BY FRED GRIMM [email protected]
Nothing about the sadistic abuse that boot camp guards heaped on Martin Lee Anderson should shock anyone. Kicking, punching, choking. We already knew all about that stuff. Not even the pummeling of the 14-year-old boy after he had collapsed into unconsciousness was so surprising.
Nor was the utter indifference of the boot camp nurse who watched the brutality unfold without intervening.
The novelty here was that this kid lasted only three horrific hours at the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp. Then he died. That's the news. Not that kids in these programs are getting the hell beat out of them.
OLD STORY RESURRECTED
We all know what boot camps are about: gross intimidation, physical abuse and cruelty visited upon children. The cruelty suffered by Martin Lee Anderson at the boot camp in Panama City only resurrected an old story.
The fad to consign juvenile offenders to military-style boot camps started a dozen years ago and quickly spread to 27 states. And the reports that came out of these experiments had a numbing sameness. The camps nurtured sadistic guards and horrible abuse while 65 to 75 percent of its inmates were back in trouble within a year.
Georgia was among the first states to consign juvenile offenders to boot camps in 1990 and by the end of the decade, the U.S. Department of Justice had brought civil rights charges. The feds cataloged beatings, kickings, chokings -- oh, you can guess the details. Georgia closed the camps in 1999.
OTHERS ABANDON CAMPS
North Dakota, Colorado and Arizona abandoned boot camps after mounting allegations of abused kids were measured against miserable recidivism rates.
A series of shocking stories by the Baltimore Sun prompted Maryland to shutter its boot camps in 1999.
Stories that were shocking in 1999 can't be all that shocking in 2006. It can hardly be a surprise to officials in Tallahassee that the state's six juvenile detention boot camps are hell holes. Just across town, Aaron McNeece, the dean of Florida State University's College of Social Work, has studied the camps and told state officials and legislators that these programs were dangerous failures.
`WASTE OF MONEY'
''Everybody knows that they're a waste of time and money. Still, they keep going,'' he said.
Not even the death in Bay County, accompanied by videotaped evidence of horrific abuse, has prompted the Department of Juvenile Justice to cancel the boot camp's contract. ''The first story about this ran Jan. 7,'' said Judge Frank Orlando, who runs a youth law think-tank at Nova Southeastern University. ``The fact that this place is still open tells you how dysfunctional this state agency is.''
SHERIFFS' POLITICAL MUSCLE
Political power explains why boot camps thrive -- Florida's six camps are run by county sheriffs. ''They don't know the first thing about rehabilitation. But they know how to mess kids up in these boot camps,'' said Judge Orlando.
But sheriffs wield political clout. They managed, even while taking state operating funds, to keep their camps exempted from safeguards required for other juvenile lockups.
Besides, the public loves the notion of boot camps. We love TV news clips of rowdy kids lined up like Marines, getting the discipline we're so sure is all they need to right their lives.
Boot camps provides politicians with props for the 11 o'clock news, ''visible solutions to a serious social problem,'' McNeece call them. ``Whether they work or not is irrelevant.''
Martin Lee Anderson was incarcerated for taking his granny's car on a reckless joyride.
Here in Florida, despite a dozen years' worth of evidence to the contrary, we calculated that all the kid needed was brutal discipline and a dose of tough love.
We tough-loved Martin to death.
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Read the background of this kid. Its so sad. He was a good kid, doing well and was killed for joyriding in grandma's car. Will people ever learn?
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/12/State ... nce_.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/12/State/Teen_lost_his_chance_.shtml)
Teen lost his chance to finish turnaround
A teenager sentenced to boot camp was thriving at school, respectful at work, and - before the joyride - finally on track.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE and ALEX LEARY
Published February 12, 2006
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PANAMA CITY - Martin Lee Anderson struggled at school, so his parents sent him to the Emerald Bay Academy, a school that specializes in underperforming kids.
Martin thrived. He excelled at math. He won a leadership award. He bested his classmates at chess.
"He was a well-liked young man," principal Joe Bullock said. "He did not create problems or disruptions in class."
But just as everything finally seemed to be going right, Martin's young life fell apart.
Martin was charged with grand theft after he and a few friends took his grandmother's car on a joyride.
On Jan. 5, the 14-year-old Panama City teen collapsed during his first day at a boot camp run by the Bay County Sheriff's Office and the state Department of Juvenile Justice. He died at a Pensacola hospital.
Martin's death has brought attention to Juvenile Justice's boot camps and provided critics a prime example of what they consider the system's failings.
Last week, two legislators claimed that a video of Martin's final hours shows several drill instructors beating him in the boot camp's yard. The tape, which has not yet been made available to the public or Martin's family, so infuriated state Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, that he compared it to the Rodney King beating.
That comparison angered Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who called the legislators "loose cannons" who had done nothing but "add fuel to an already volatile situation."
* * *
Martin was born to Rober t Anderson and Gina Jones on Jan. 15, 1991. He lived in a tidy yellow house with green trim on Seventh Street with his mother and his sister, 13-year-old Startavia. His father and other family lived nearby.
Martin grew into a lanky teen who loved basketball, Archie comic books and Xbox. He never lacked for friends and was a leader among the neighborhood youth and at school. He wanted to play basketball and go to college, his parents say. He told his father he would like to drive a truck.
A poster of rapper Lil' Wayne is taped to his bedroom door. A phone next to his bunk bed still has his voice on the answering machine. A framed letter from a class assignment in November sits near one wall.
"I am like a shining star in the world," it reads in his tight, small cursive.
Martin begged his mother to let him get a part-time job at a Burger King in a convenience store on 23rd Street. He had wanted to earn extra money for shoes, a cell phone and to buy pizza and hot wings, she said. She relented, letting him work a few days a week.
"He worked harder than I've ever seen any 14-year-old do," said co-worker Debra Adams, 40. Martin often worked the early morning shift on weekends, something a less responsible teen couldn't have handled, she said. He regularly started those shifts between 7 and 8 a.m., she said.
He treated customers and employees with respect, addressing them as "Miss" and "Mister."
The idea of Martin acting up at the boot camp doesn't sit right with Adams. "I just can't see why they would have to restrain Martin," she said.
"He might have made one mistake, but he didn't deserve to die," she said.
That mistake was swiping his grandmother's car in June during church. While she sat near the front of the sanctuary, Martin, his sister and several friends slipped out of church and drove off. Their escapade ended when the car struck a pole.
Several months later, Martin broke his court-imposed curfew, and a judge ordered him to a boot camp, Jones said.
The family chose the local boot camp because it was only a few minutes' drive from their home. Shortly before he started his assignment, Martin and his mother met with a drill instructor. That's when Jones began to get a bad feeling, she said.
The instructor accused her son of being a gang member, she said.
"He said, "When you come in my house, you're on my rules,"' recalled Jones, 36.
On the day she dropped him off at the camp, they shared a final embrace. "He said, "I love you,' and the way he said it, he knew something,"' Jones said.
The next time she saw Martin, he was in the hospital. Blood was running from his nose, and it looked broken, she said. His body had swollen so much that the 140-pound boy looked about 300 pounds, his father said.
Jones said the family wanted to donate his organs, but they were told they were too damaged.
"Certainly, the family believes there was trauma," said the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump of Tallahassee.
Just what happened in the hours Martin spent at the boot camp, a single-story brick compound enclosed in a razor-wire topped fence, isn't yet clear.
Typically, a new arrival undergoes an evaluation by a nurse, a physical fitness assessment and an introduction to behavioral expectations by drill instructors, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser. Some drill instructors are sworn law enforcement officers, she said, but it's not a requirement for the job. The exercise requirements and procedures are nothing out of the ordinary, Sasser said.
"It's very typical of any boot camp," she said.
That may be the problem, said Barreiro.
* * *
Boot camps arose in the mid 1980s as tough-on-crime attitudes swept national politics. In 1987, as Florida prisons began to overflow, then-Gov. Bob Martinez signed a bill creating the camps. The first one opened in Manatee County in 1993. Boys in blue prison uniforms ran obstacle courses, marched in the sun and shouted chants.
"I used to live a life of crime. Now I'm doing boot camp time," one went.
But critics arose almost immediately, wondering if the flashy salutes, shiny shoes and dozens of push-ups in the dirt could reform young criminals. One scoffed that all it would produce was a "well-conditioned mugger."
By 1995, lawmakers were revisiting the idea in light of poor performance reports. One study found three out of four recruits at the Manatee camp were re-arrested within a year of release. Another study in 1998 found 87 percent of graduates from Broward County's now-defunct camp had been re-arrested. Today, five boot camps exist in Bay, Manatee, Martin, Pinellas and Polk counties, serving 197 youths. They must stay for at least four months, but most stay six.
Barreiro has emerged as the most vocal critic, arguing that camps are failures built on intimidation and abuse. One of his central points is that recent reforms in Florida calling for less aggressive tactics with youthful offenders did not apply to boot camps.
"The DJJ has known for years that boot camps didn't have to meet the same standards," he said. "Why does it take a death to show that's a problem?"
Barreiro called for their end after Martin's death in January but it was not until the video became known that his cause took hold, drawing national media attention.
"They are dangerous, they don't change behavior and they cost a lot of money," he said.
There has been one other death at a Florida camp. In 1998, 16-year-old Chad Franza hanged himself at the Polk County facility. His parents won settlements from the county, the Department of Juvenile Justice and the camp's private health care provider.
Though advocates still back the camps, additional research and recidivism studies aid Barreiro. The Department of Juvenile Justice's records show that 62 percent of graduates are re-arrested, a rate experts call high.
"They're simply not effective," said Aaron McNeese, a Florida State University dean who has studied boot camps. "Everybody equates boot camp with getting tough. Whether it works or not, it looks good."
Backed by the video, Barreiro heads with confidence into Wednesday's meeting of the House Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee. He scheduled a workshop to discuss the camps and whether they deserve continued funding.
It promises to be a heated meeting. One former sheriff, Pinellas' Everett Rice, is now a lawmaker on the committee. Stressing he had not seen the video, Rice said, "I don't think we should throw everything out just because of one incident. I think they have been successful programs."
Perhaps a greater obstacle is Barreiro's counterpart in the Senate, Stephen Wise of Jacksonville, who has said he supports the programs.
"Every once in a while something happens," Wise said recently. "It happens in prisons. It happens in real life, too. It's a shame. We just have to make sure we try to fix it."
* * *
Jones is tortured by the thought of her son's final hours. The day she took him to the boot camp, his face looked as if he had been crying, she said.
She told him she had been crying, too.
It was okay to cry, she said, and promised they would see each other again soon.
[Last modified February 12, 2006, 00:27:07]
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St. Petersburg Times editorial on boot camp death.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/11/Opini ... ideo.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/11/Opinion/Release_the_video.shtml)
Release the video
Officials say a tape that shows the beating of a 14-year-old at a military-style boot camp is part of their investigation into the juvenile's death.
A Times Editorial
Published February 11, 2006
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Two Florida lawmakers who viewed the video of a teenager being beaten by guards at a juvenile boot camp called the footage "horrific" and a clear use of "excessive force." Bay County Sheriff W. Frank McKeithen, who runs the boot camp for the state, took exception to those summaries of what preceded the death of Martin Lee Anderson, 14, calling the legislators "irresponsible" and "incorrect."
There is an easy way for the public to decide who is right: Release the video. Both Bay County officials and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement refuse, contending it is part of their investigation into Anderson's death and exempt from public records law.
It is not clear, however, what harm would be done to any future criminal case if the public is allowed to see what went on inside the Panama City facility.
Reps. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, and Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, described what they saw as they watched a slim 14-year-old boy being roughed up by several adults.
"(I've) never seen any kid being brutalized ... the way I saw this young man being brutalized," said Barreiro. "When you see stuff like that, you want to go through the TV and say, "Enough is enough. Please stop hitting this kid."'
Added Gelber: "I don't think there's any question there was excessive force. This is a relatively small kid with a half a dozen of pretty strong men, and he seemed to be phasing in and out of consciousness."
It was only Anderson's second day at the boot camp. After the beating, he complained of breathing problems and collapsed. A cause of death has not been released, although a preliminary report ruled out trauma or injury.
The use of military-style boot camps for juvenile offenders has come under increasing criticism. Those released from boot camps have a rearrest rate of 62 percent, hardly an argument for effectiveness. And this isn't the first abuse complaint. Two boys alleged they were choked at the same camp, but their complaints were ruled unfounded by the Sheriff's Office, which gets to investigate itself.
Barreiro has seen enough. "These programs are not working," he said. "We need to shut these things down."
Once Floridians see the video, they just might agree.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13845105.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13845105.htm)
BOOT CAMP DEATH
Earlier cases fault guard
A guard being investigated in the death of a teen at a Panhandle boot camp once was suspended following a similar allegation.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND MARC CAPUTO [email protected]
PANAMA CITY - One of the seven guards under investigation in the death of a 14-year-old boy at a Panama City boot camp was suspended without pay in 2004 for failing to ''seek medical attention'' for a youth who accused him of smashing his face into the ground, bloodying his nose.
The officer, Patrick Tate Garrett, also was accused by a youth later that year of being among three guards who ''put their fingers into his throat so he couldn't breathe,'' according to a report that cleared Garrett and the others of any wrongdoing.
Yet another guard, Sgt. Henry Leslie Dickens, was part of a group that ''choked'' a boy during a restraint in March, according to a complaint from the youth that an investigation ruled was unfounded.
Both Garrett and Dickens are among seven officers at the Bay County Boot Camp under investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for Martin Lee Anderson's Jan. 6 death. Martin complained at least twice that he could not breathe during a series of controversial restraints at the camp the day before.
The events are detailed in a series of ''incident'' reports written by investigators of the Bay County Sheriff's Office. The Miami Herald obtained the records from the sheriff's office and the state Department of Juvenile Justice. Many of the records portray Garrett, Dickens and the other officers as stellar employees.
Martin, 14, of Panama City, was sent to the boot camp after police arrested him for joyriding in his grandmother's car during a Sunday church service. He was charged with grand theft.
On Jan. 5, Martin arrived at the military-style camp along with several other youths for initiation, which includes a program of strenuous exercise and discipline. Officers have said only that Martin had trouble breathing after guards restrained him for failing to cooperate with orders to perform more exercises. Martin told the camp's nurse, Kristin Schmidt, ''he could not breathe'' following one of the ''use of force techniques'' officers used on him, but the nurse concluded that he ''appeared comfortable and in no respiratory distress,'' Schmidt told a Department of Juvenile Justice official the day Martin died.
LAST MOMENTS
Some of Martin's last moments at the camp were detailed in the report by the DJJ's chief medical director, Shairi R. Turner, in a Jan. 9 ''youth death report'' obtained by The Herald.
''His breathing was not felt to be labored and his respiratory rate had not changed,'' Turner wrote, quoting Schmidt. Moments later, however, Martin told boot camp staff ''he could not see and he could not breathe,'' Turner quoted Schmidt as saying. ``He continued to make purposeful movements, then went limp.'' The report says it was almost 20 minutes between when the nurse first ''assessed'' the youth and called paramedics.
The report documented ``profuse bleeding from [Martin's] nose and mouth, requiring multiple units of blood and IV fluids.''
The medical examiner in Panama City has yet to release a cause of death.
Officials have said there was no sign of bruising on Martin's body, but two state lawmakers who viewed a videotape of the encounter have told The Miami Herald that it shows officers punching, kicking and choking the youth, and apparently pushing something up his nose -- identified by an investigator as an ammonia capsule, used to revive unconscious patients.
Martin's parents, who have been denied the right to see the tape, have hired a lawyer and say they fear a ``coverup.''
SUSPENDED
In the previous case implicating Garrett, he was ordered suspended on Aug. 6, 2004, for three days without pay for failing to report to his supervisors an incident that had occurred on July 30 of that year. He also was faulted for failing to request medical attention for the youth in the incident, and failing to use proper techniques for ``motivational physical training.'' In that case, a youth had complained he ''was having difficulty performing pushups when Sgt. Garrett pushed his head to the floor, causing his face to hit the floor and his nose to bleed,'' a report says.
In addition to the three-day suspension, Garrett was ordered to remain in a ''non-contact'' status with youths at the camp until he was retrained in procedures for ''reporting and requesting medical assistance for youths,'' the ''proper practice of approved physical training exercises'' for youths and reporting incidents up the chain of command.
''It is my duty to inform you that any further violations of this nature may result in more severe disciplinary action and/or termination . . .'' said a letter to Garrett written by a camp captain. Yet Garrett's personnel file, also supplied by the sheriff's office, portrays a somewhat different officer.
His annual evaluation notes: ''Sgt. Garrett exhibits good control over offenders'' and that he can ``be counted on to work extra when details are needed.'' The man who prepared the report: Raymond Hauck, also implicated in Martin's case.
In a separate case, a youth said he was ''physically abused'' by Garrett and two other officers ''after he became non-resistant'' during an incident Oct. 30, 2004. The youth claimed that Garrett and the two others ''continued to put their fingers into his throat so he couldn't breathe'' after he no longer was resisting their use of force, according to a report, which cleared the officers of any wrongdoing.
PRESSURE APPLIED
Dickens, who also received high praise from supervisors, was involved in an incident Feb. 8, 2005, in which a youth claimed he and six drill instructors applied ''pressure to his Adam's apple'' and applied pressure to his throat ``until it began to cut off his air.'' 'The staff yelled for the juvenile to say, `Sir, yes sir,' which the juvenile immediately did,'' said the report, which found no excessive force was used.
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Experts say counseling, not boot camps, prevent teen violence
LAURA MECKLER, Associated Press Writer
Friday, October 15, 2004
(10-15) 14:12 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --
Boot camps and other "get tough" program for adolescents do not prevent criminal behavior, as intended, and may make the problem even worse, an expert panel concluded Friday.
Further, laws transferring juveniles into the adult court system lead these teens to commit more violence and at the same time, there is no proof they deter others from committing crime, the panel said.
More promising, it said, are programs that offer intensive counseling for families and young people at risk.
The 13-member panel of experts, convened by the National Institutes of Health, reviewed the available scientific evidence to look for consensus on causes of youth violence and ways to prevent it.
"'Scare tactics' don't work," the panel concluded in its report, released Friday. "Programs that seek to prevent violence through fear and tough treatment do not work."
Youth violence has declined from its peak a decade ago but violent crime rates are still high, the panel said.
Violence can be traced to a variety of troublesome conditions. Among possible causes: inconsistent or harsh parenting, poor peer relations, gang involvement, lack of connection to school and living in a violent neighborhood.
The trouble with boot camps, group detention centers and other "get tough" programs is they bring together young people who are inclined toward violence and teach each other how to commit more crime, the panel said: "The more sophisticated (teens) instruct the more naive in precisely the behaviors that the intervener wishes to prevent."
It also rejected programs that "consist largely of adults lecturing," like DARE.
One barrier to implementing effective programs, the report said, is resistance from people operating ineffective programs who depend on them for their jobs.
"All the evaluations have shown they don't work," said the panel's chair, Dr. Robert L. Johnson of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. "Many communities are wasting a great deal of money on those types of programs."
The panel looked for programs that have been tested using rigorous research methods and concluded that "the good news is that there are a number of intervention programs that have been shown" effective.
The report cited two: a therapy program where youth and their families attend 12 one-hour sessions over three months, and a community-based clinical treatment program that targeted violent and chronic offenders at risk of being removed from their families. This second program provided about 60 hours of counseling over about four months with therapists available at all hours.
One key, Johnson said, was letting counselors observe families and children together and offer suggestions for better parenting.
Both programs reduced arrest rates and out-of-home placements, with positive effects four years after treatment ended.
The report identified six other programs that seemed to work but that hadn't been studied as closely, including Big Brothers Big Sisters, a nurse-family partnership program and Project Towards No Drug Abuse.
Successful programs share a variety of characteristics, the panel said. Among them: treatments last a year or longer, intensive clinical work with those at risk is included, they take place outside schools and other institutional settings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the Net:
National Institutes of Health consensus conferences:
consensus.nih.gov/
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It's gone international!!! Kathy has an article from Ireland on ?her site (http://http://www.kathymoya.com/FICA/2006%20feb%2011_%20Probe%20launch%20into%20death.htm) and here's a new one from The Guardian, UK (http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5606344,00.html).?
Fla. Video Said to Show Boot Camp Beating
Thursday February 9, 2006 10:16 PM
By BRENT KALLESTAD
Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A videotape shows guards brutally beating a boy at a military-style boot camp for juvenile delinquents not long before the teenager died, two lawmakers said Thursday.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died Jan. 6 at a Pensacola hospital, a day after he entered the camp because of an arrest for theft.
Anderson complained of breathing difficulties and collapsed during exercises that were part of the entry process at the camp, which was run by the Bay County Sheriff's Office.
Authorities have said he had to be restrained when he became uncooperative during the workout.
State Rep. Gus Barreiro, a Republican, called the videotape ``horrific,'' saying he had ``never seen any kid being brutalized ... the way I saw this young man being brutalized.''
``Even towards the end of the videotape, where you could just see there was pretty much nothing left of Martin, they came out with a couple cups of water and splashed him in the face,'' he said. ``When you see stuff like that, you want to go through the TV and say, 'Enough is enough. Please stop hitting this kid.'''
Bay County authorities and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement have refused to make the tape public, but Barreiro and state Rep. Dan Gelber, a Democrat who also viewed the videotape, said it would be released soon.
``I don't think there's any question there was excessive force,'' Gelber said. ``This is a relatively small kid with a half a dozen of pretty strong men, and he seemed to be phasing in and out of consciousness.''
Sheriff Frank McKeithen issued a statement accusing Barreiro and Gelber of overreacting with ``irresponsible, premature and incorrect statements'' that ``add fuel to an already volatile situation.''
The contents of the tape were first reported by The Miami Herald.
Gov. Jeb Bush, who was in Orlando, said that although he had not seen the tape, several of his aides had and he was aware of the contents. ``Absolutely we're concerned,'' he said.
Anderson's family said it plans to sue Bay County and the state Department of Juvenile Justice, which oversees boot camp programs. The department gave the camp a good review in June 2004.
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Dickens, who also received high praise from supervisors, was involved in an incident Feb. 8, 2005, in which a youth claimed he and six drill instructors applied ''pressure to his Adam's apple'' and applied pressure to his throat ``until it began to cut off his air.'' 'The staff yelled for the juvenile to say, `Sir, yes sir,' which the juvenile immediately did,'' said the report, which found no excessive force was used.
Lovely.
Whats sad? Thats a-okay with a lot of america! Nobody sees the problem with basically beating kids down into submission, and the fear and humiliation that goes with it, and combining that with day-long forced exercise for a long period of time.
Anyone ever compared a bootcamp model with the brainwashing model? http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html (http://www.ex-cult.org/bite.html) <- look for yourselves.
But, well, "bootcamp" is such a part of our society now, that we will never be rid of it, just have people reason that bootcamp brainwashing is a necessary evil.
It might be for the military, but its not ok for kids - and they dont do that shit in the military to ADULTS, but we're this brutal to CHILDREN? WTF?
WHEN SPIDERS UNITE, THEY CAN TIE DOWN A LION
-- Ethiopian Proverb
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Miami Herald, CNN, sue FDLE over video in boot camp death (http://http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FL_BOOT_CAMP_DEATH_FLOL-?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=STATE&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)
MIAMI (AP) -- The Miami Herald and CNN sued the Florida Department of Law Enforcement Monday to obtain the release of a videotape that allegedly shows guards beating a 14-year-old boy at a military-style boot camp before he died.
The state has so far refused to release the tape to the public.
Martin Lee Anderson, 14, of Panama City, died Jan. 6 after collapsing at the camp operated by the Bay County Sheriff's Office. He had complained of breathing problems while doing exercises as part of the camp's admitting procedures. The sheriff's office has said officers restrained Anderson after he became uncooperative.
"We want the tape. The public has a right to the tape and it's unconscionable for that tape to be withheld from public view," Miami Herald attorney Robert G. Beatty said.
The suit was filed late Monday afternoon in state court in Tallahassee, after the newspaper and CNN had made several attempts to obtain the video and were repeatedly refused, Beatty said.
"To my knowledge, as of now, FDLE has not been served. If we are, we will not comment on any pending litigation that FDLE is involved in," FDLE spokeswoman Kristen Perezluha said.
Perezluha added that the FDLE has been involved in discussions about possible release of the tape, but no decision has been made. The state agency also has an active investigation of the boot camp death and does not want to violate its protocol for investigations, Perezluha said.
Legislators who have seen the videotape have described its content as brutal, and a display of excessive force.
State Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, called the beating Anderson received horrific, and that the youth had been brutalized.
"I don't think there's any question there was excessive force," Rep. Dan Gelber, a Democrat from Miami Beach and former federal prosecutor said after seeing the tape.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen said earlier in a statement the legislators' comments were irresponsible and incorrect.
Anderson's parents, Gina Jones and Robert Anderson, said they had not been allowed to see their son's last conscious moments. The family's attorney, Ben Crump, has demanded the tape's release.
Beatty said a verbal and written request to obtain the tape were made last week and on Monday.
Miami attorney Sandy Bohrer of the law firm Holland & Knight will represent both the Herald and CNN in the litigation, Beatty said.
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let's see, do you have all of the facts? Do you know if the kid had any undetected medical conditions before going to the camp? Do you know if the toxicology tests revealed he had taken any drugs, especially narcotics, prior to going to the camp?
Have you seen the video? Have you talked to witnesses?
Yes, it is a tragedy. Was it the fault of the guards? Maybe, maybe not. We just do not know yet.
HOWEVER, what you fail to mention and the public and news media fail to mention is that these are not little angels that are at these bootcamps. These are kids who are travelling down the wrong path, committing serious felonies and have burgeoning criminal careers ahead of them. They are heading toward a life of going into and getting out of prison. The boot camps have a better success rate considering recidivism than simple incarceration.
Getting back to this case, until you have all the facts, if you make a decision than YOU are an idiot.
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On 2006-02-14 20:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"let's see, do you have all of the facts? Do you know if the kid had any undetected medical conditions before going to the camp? Do you know if the toxicology tests revealed he had taken any drugs, especially narcotics, prior to going to the camp?
Have you seen the video? Have you talked to witnesses?
Yes, it is a tragedy. Was it the fault of the guards? Maybe, maybe not. We just do not know yet.
HOWEVER, what you fail to mention and the public and news media fail to mention is that these are not little angels that are at these bootcamps. These are kids who are travelling down the wrong path, committing serious felonies and have burgeoning criminal careers ahead of them. They are heading toward a life of going into and getting out of prison. The boot camps have a better success rate considering recidivism than simple incarceration.
Getting back to this case, until you have all the facts, if you make a decision than YOU are an idiot."
Soooooooo, maybe watching the video would might be considered "fact finding", wouldn't it?Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundation, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.
James Madison
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Heart Failure was cause of death.
They beat him.
They choked him.
He died.
His heart stopped beating.
He died of Heart Failure.
Happens ALL THE TIME in the prison system.
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On 2006-02-14 20:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"let's see, do you have all of the facts? Do you know if the kid had any undetected medical conditions before going to the camp? Do you know if the toxicology tests revealed he had taken any drugs, especially narcotics, prior to going to the camp?
Have you seen the video? Have you talked to witnesses?
Yes, it is a tragedy. Was it the fault of the guards? Maybe, maybe not. We just do not know yet.
HOWEVER, what you fail to mention and the public and news media fail to mention is that these are not little angels that are at these bootcamps. These are kids who are travelling down the wrong path, committing serious felonies and have burgeoning criminal careers ahead of them. They are heading toward a life of going into and getting out of prison. The boot camps have a better success rate considering recidivism than simple incarceration.
Getting back to this case, until you have all the facts, if you make a decision than YOU are an idiot."
Is TheWho posting anon? Sounds so familiar.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =30#158009 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=12953&forum=9&start=30#158009)
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Teen lost his chance to finish turnaround
A teenager sentenced to boot camp was thriving at school, respectful at work, and - before the joyride - finally on track.
By ABBIE VANSICKLE and ALEX LEARY
Published February 12, 2006
-----------------------------------------------
[AP photo]
Robert Anderson stands by his son's grave Thursday in Panama City. Martin wanted to play basketball and go to college, his parents say. Martin Lee Anderson, 14, died Jan. 6.
------------------------------------------------
PANAMA CITY - Martin Lee Anderson struggled at school, so his parents sent him to the Emerald Bay Academy, a school that specializes in underperforming kids.
Martin thrived. He excelled at math. He won a leadership award. He bested his classmates at chess.
"He was a well-liked young man," principal Joe Bullock said. "He did not create problems or disruptions in class."
But just as everything finally seemed to be going right, Martin's young life fell apart.
Martin was charged with grand theft after he and a few friends took his grandmother's car on a joyride.
On Jan. 5, the 14-year-old Panama City teen collapsed during his first day at a boot camp run by the Bay County Sheriff's Office and the state Department of Juvenile Justice. He died at a Pensacola hospital.
Martin's death has brought attention to Juvenile Justice's boot camps and provided critics a prime example of what they consider the system's failings.
Last week, two legislators claimed that a video of Martin's final hours shows several drill instructors beating him in the boot camp's yard. The tape, which has not yet been made available to the public or Martin's family, so infuriated state Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, that he compared it to the Rodney King beating.
That comparison angered Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who called the legislators "loose cannons" who had done nothing but "add fuel to an already volatile situation."
* * *
Martin was born to Rober t Anderson and Gina Jones on Jan. 15, 1991. He lived in a tidy yellow house with green trim on Seventh Street with his mother and his sister, 13-year-old Startavia. His father and other family lived nearby.
Martin grew into a lanky teen who loved basketball, Archie comic books and Xbox. He never lacked for friends and was a leader among the neighborhood youth and at school. He wanted to play basketball and go to college, his parents say. He told his father he would like to drive a truck.
A poster of rapper Lil' Wayne is taped to his bedroom door. A phone next to his bunk bed still has his voice on the answering machine. A framed letter from a class assignment in November sits near one wall.
"I am like a shining star in the world," it reads in his tight, small cursive.
Martin begged his mother to let him get a part-time job at a Burger King in a convenience store on 23rd Street. He had wanted to earn extra money for shoes, a cell phone and to buy pizza and hot wings, she said. She relented, letting him work a few days a week.
"He worked harder than I've ever seen any 14-year-old do," said co-worker Debra Adams, 40. Martin often worked the early morning shift on weekends, something a less responsible teen couldn't have handled, she said. He regularly started those shifts between 7 and 8 a.m., she said.
He treated customers and employees with respect, addressing them as "Miss" and "Mister."
The idea of Martin acting up at the boot camp doesn't sit right with Adams. "I just can't see why they would have to restrain Martin," she said.
"He might have made one mistake, but he didn't deserve to die," she said.
That mistake was swiping his grandmother's car in June during church. While she sat near the front of the sanctuary, Martin, his sister and several friends slipped out of church and drove off. Their escapade ended when the car struck a pole.
Several months later, Martin broke his court-imposed curfew, and a judge ordered him to a boot camp, Jones said.
The family chose the local boot camp because it was only a few minutes' drive from their home. Shortly before he started his assignment, Martin and his mother met with a drill instructor. That's when Jones began to get a bad feeling, she said.
The instructor accused her son of being a gang member, she said.
"He said, "When you come in my house, you're on my rules,"' recalled Jones, 36.
On the day she dropped him off at the camp, they shared a final embrace. "He said, "I love you,' and the way he said it, he knew something,"' Jones said.
The next time she saw Martin, he was in the hospital. Blood was running from his nose, and it looked broken, she said. His body had swollen so much that the 140-pound boy looked about 300 pounds, his father said.
Jones said the family wanted to donate his organs, but they were told they were too damaged.
"Certainly, the family believes there was trauma," said the family's attorney, Benjamin Crump of Tallahassee.
Just what happened in the hours Martin spent at the boot camp, a single-story brick compound enclosed in a razor-wire topped fence, isn't yet clear.
Typically, a new arrival undergoes an evaluation by a nurse, a physical fitness assessment and an introduction to behavioral expectations by drill instructors, according to sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser. Some drill instructors are sworn law enforcement officers, she said, but it's not a requirement for the job. The exercise requirements and procedures are nothing out of the ordinary, Sasser said.
"It's very typical of any boot camp," she said.
That may be the problem, said Barreiro.
* * *
Boot camps arose in the mid 1980s as tough-on-crime attitudes swept national politics. In 1987, as Florida prisons began to overflow, then-Gov. Bob Martinez signed a bill creating the camps. The first one opened in Manatee County in 1993. Boys in blue prison uniforms ran obstacle courses, marched in the sun and shouted chants.
"I used to live a life of crime. Now I'm doing boot camp time," one went.
But critics arose almost immediately, wondering if the flashy salutes, shiny shoes and dozens of push-ups in the dirt could reform young criminals. One scoffed that all it would produce was a "well-conditioned mugger."
By 1995, lawmakers were revisiting the idea in light of poor performance reports. One study found three out of four recruits at the Manatee camp were re-arrested within a year of release. Another study in 1998 found 87 percent of graduates from Broward County's now-defunct camp had been re-arrested. Today, five boot camps exist in Bay, Manatee, Martin, Pinellas and Polk counties, serving 197 youths. They must stay for at least four months, but most stay six.
Barreiro has emerged as the most vocal critic, arguing that camps are failures built on intimidation and abuse. One of his central points is that recent reforms in Florida calling for less aggressive tactics with youthful offenders did not apply to boot camps.
"The DJJ has known for years that boot camps didn't have to meet the same standards," he said. "Why does it take a death to show that's a problem?"
Barreiro called for their end after Martin's death in January but it was not until the video became known that his cause took hold, drawing national media attention.
"They are dangerous, they don't change behavior and they cost a lot of money," he said.
There has been one other death at a Florida camp. In 1998, 16-year-old Chad Franza hanged himself at the Polk County facility. His parents won settlements from the county, the Department of Juvenile Justice and the camp's private health care provider.
Though advocates still back the camps, additional research and recidivism studies aid Barreiro. The Department of Juvenile Justice's records show that 62 percent of graduates are re-arrested, a rate experts call high.
"They're simply not effective," said Aaron McNeese, a Florida State University dean who has studied boot camps. "Everybody equates boot camp with getting tough. Whether it works or not, it looks good."
Backed by the video, Barreiro heads with confidence into Wednesday's meeting of the House Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee. He scheduled a workshop to discuss the camps and whether they deserve continued funding.
It promises to be a heated meeting. One former sheriff, Pinellas' Everett Rice, is now a lawmaker on the committee. Stressing he had not seen the video, Rice said, "I don't think we should throw everything out just because of one incident. I think they have been successful programs."
Perhaps a greater obstacle is Barreiro's counterpart in the Senate, Stephen Wise of Jacksonville, who has said he supports the programs.
"Every once in a while something happens," Wise said recently. "It happens in prisons. It happens in real life, too. It's a shame. We just have to make sure we try to fix it."
* * *
Jones is tortured by the thought of her son's final hours. The day she took him to the boot camp, his face looked as if he had been crying, she said.
She told him she had been crying, too.
It was okay to cry, she said, and promised they would see each other again soon.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/12/State ... nce_.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/12/State/Teen_lost_his_chance_.shtml)
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I wrote yesterday about a 14-year-old kid who died at a "boot camp" in Florida when he was beaten for "not following orders" by guards. Two state representatives, one a Democrat and one a Republican, viewed the videotape of the incident and were appalled at the treatment, describing the victim as thrown around "like a rag doll," and that what they saw was ''brutal,'' ''disturbing'' and ''heinous.''
The police department is upset that they're making such a fuss:
A North Florida sheriff called two Miami-Dade legislators ''loose cannons'' Thursday for publicly describing a videotape allegedly showing deputies beating a 14-year-old boy who died hours later.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, whose office runs the juvenile boot camp in which the incident occurred, said the two lawmakers ``overreacted, and as a result we could all suffer the consequences.''
''Inaccurate statements by both representatives have done nothing but add fuel to an already volatile situation,'' McKeithen said in a short, written statement. ``I humbly ask the public to let officials do their job, complete the investigation and then make a decision based on facts, not the comments of loose cannon politicians.''
Sheriff, you've got a corpse on your hands, and it's the people who saw what your men did who "overreacted"? Now you're afraid to "suffer the consequences"? You want a decision "based on facts"? Well okay, here's one: the kid's organs were so damaged, his mother couldn't even donate them for transplant.
http://www.blah3.com/article1564.html (http://www.blah3.com/article1564.html)
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Any excuse to coverup at all, huh? :roll:
Utterly amazing how the people who hold us accountable want nothing to do with being held accountable themselves.
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Frank McKeithen
http://www.bayso.org/ (http://www.bayso.org/)
2003- Present (Appointed Sheriff of Bay County) by Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
http://bay.perfectvote.com/candidate.asp?idnum=141 (http://bay.perfectvote.com/candidate.asp?idnum=141)
The offenders must be 14 to 18 years of age, must be adjudicated by the court and must have committed at least one third degree felony.
The objective of the Boot Camp program is to condition the juvenile both physically and mentally in an attempt to allow them to handle life without committing further criminal acts.
It is a paramilitary program designed to teach self respect, discipline, high self-esteem and motivation.
[We find physical force, beating, choking to be highly effective.]
http://www.bayso.org/bootcamp.htm (http://www.bayso.org/bootcamp.htm)
Republican, no surprise
http://gray.ftp.clickability.com/wtvywe ... t1102x.htm (http://gray.ftp.clickability.com/wtvywebftp/election/st1102x.htm)
Hernandez came to Panama City from parts unknown in the late 80's and his first job was with Dixie Mafia Boss, developer Charles Faircloth at Continental Fisheries, Ltd, a Marifarms operation that raised shrimp and had operations in Nicaragua and Honduras as well as off the Coast of Africa. In the early 70's Marifarms fenced off a major portion of West Bay and was a hot environmental issue itself.
Faircloth is a major developer of high rise million dollar condo's and was one of the very first such developers in Panama City, Florida. Her is also a major backer of newly elected Bay County Sheriff, Frank McKeithen. Faircloth's business associates include Charles L. Hitlon another Dixie Mafia figure, who is business partners with another New Jersey native, Florida House Speaker Alan Bense.....
http://www.insider-magazine.com/DEPYonstory.html (http://www.insider-magazine.com/DEPYonstory.html)
Files Wide Shut
By Anthony Cormier
News Herald Writer
They wanted names and reasons.
They asked for phone numbers, addresses, driver?s licenses and signatures. They said to come back with lawyers, with subpoenas, with better answers and at better times.
They interrogated. They balked. They scoffed.
About 75 percent of the time, they did not follow the law. Government, school district and law enforcement offices in seven Panhandle counties routinely violated Florida?s Sunshine Law during a two-week audit conducted last month by The News Herald.
Of the 47 agencies tested by reporters, 22 failed to produce documents and 13 others skirted the law by requiring names, reasons or written requests in exchange for public records.
Reporters, who did not identify themselves as such, visited county offices, school districts, sheriff?s offices, city halls and police departments in Bay, Calhoun, Franklin, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson and Washington counties. At law enforcement agencies, reporters asked for a single day?s worth of incident reports. At government and school district offices, reporters requested to view specific personnel files....
?Basically,? Sasser said, ?(McKeithen) believes that the Sunshine Laws are complicated. It would be his opinion that if anybody made a mistake, it was an honest mistake. They weren?t doing it intentionally, to hide anything. It?s very complicated knowing all these public record laws.?
http://www.fsne.org/sunshine2005/news/p ... ndex.shtml (http://www.fsne.org/sunshine2005/news/panama_city_violations/index.shtml)
So, where is the most awesome Party for the President in the country going to be on September 2, 2004? Right here in Bay County, Florida!!! This will be the third Party for the President hosted by the Bay County Young Republicans, and it will be the best!
http://www.rpobc.org/YR_9-2_Party.html (http://www.rpobc.org/YR_9-2_Party.html)
A federal program allows police agencies nationwide to equip themselves like the military, but with little training and not much oversight. An analysis in Florida shows a stockpile of unused weapons and overarmed communities.
"We use them just like pistols - when we need them," said Gulf Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who keeps an M-16 in a locked gun rack behind his desk. "Because of the way the bad guys are armed, you really don't know when you're going to use them."
http://www.sptimes.com/Channel10/2003/0 ... T__For.htm (http://www.sptimes.com/Channel10/2003/03/02/State/A_SPECIAL_REPORT__For.htm)
September 12, 2004 News Herald
I will not second-guess the command decision to utilize deadly force when SWAT members stormed the Bay County jail. I will let an objective and comprehensive afteraction investigation review those facts. There are, however, several initial items which warrant complete review. As a retired associate warden with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (22½ years), I?ve had some experience in these matters. First, was there a clear chain of command? Who was "calling the shots" regarding the negotiations ? Bay County Officials or Corrections Corporation of America?s warden of the site? Second, was there a public information officer designated to speak on all matters to the media? Negotiators usually never speak to the media during negotiations as Sheriff Frank McKeithen did. Third, I read where a door would not lock and the staff panic-button alarm system malfunctioned. These issues are inexcusable. Security conditions (cell locking mechanisms, staff emergency equipment, etc.) must be checked each shift ? daily ? and when found inoperative fixed immediately, or replaced with functioning equipment. Fourthly, how could inmates access controlled medications? Facilities are required to have these items safely secured (behind a grille in a safe) and available for immediate disposal through a chute in event of an emergency. Finally, who?s overseeing CCA?s compliance with contractual requirements, correctional personnel and jail standards, and regulations? Many important issues must be addressed through an objective post-incident investigation team. Accountability for incompetence must be made. By Fred Apple. The writer, who helped run federal prisons in Minnesota, now is retired and lives in Panama City.
More at Florida's Hall of Shame:
http://www.flpba.org/private/florida.htm (http://www.flpba.org/private/florida.htm)
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm)
IN MY OPINION
Boot camps for kids should be given the boot
BY FRED GRIMM [email protected]
Failure doesn't matter.
We've known for years that a kid like Martin Lee Anderson, if he had survived his six-month lock-up at the Bay County boot camp, was more likely than not to get into more trouble.
Depending on the study, from 64 to 75 percent of the kids graduating from boot camp lock-ups are re-arrested within a year.
Boot camps are failed concepts.
If the survival of these uber-tough military-style detention programs had depended on actual performance, the Bay County boot camp would have been shuttered long before young Anderson was busted for joy riding in his granny's car.
He collapsed and died on Jan. 6 after a few horrific hours at the camp. At least he won't be around to add to its abysmal recidivism rate.
If not for Martin's death, no one would be talking about Florida's boot camps. A brutal beating and a dead 14-year-old gets attention. A program's long-term failure to rehab three-fourths of its inmates doesn't matter.
Failure simply isn't a deal breaker when it comes to crime-fighting programs. We pay $40 billion to $50 billion a year to sustain our decades-long War on Drugs.
Meanwhile, the street price of coke, the most reliable market indicator of our success in limiting supply, has dropped from $500 a gram in the early 1980s to less than $170. In 2004, we spent $5 billion spraying herbicide on Latin American cocoa leaves. Production went up.
But failure has no bearing on the political popularity of anti-crime programs. No one would dare redirect those billions into softy concepts that lack military terminology or get-tough promises.
WASTE OF TIME
''Why do we still have the DARE [Drug Abuse Resistence Education] program in schools after 20 years when everybody knows it's a waste of time and money?'' asked Aaron McNeece, dean of the Florida State University College of Social Work. It was a rhetorical question. McNeece knows that symbolic solutions to crime count more than results. The DARE program, putting uniformed police officers in classrooms to warn against drugs, has been an especially resilient failure.
In 2001 the U.S. Surgeon General reported that studies of the DARE program ``consistently show little or no deterrent effects on substance use.''
The next year, National Academy of Sciences slammed DARE. The GAO reported ``no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE and students who did not.''
Three-strikes-and-you're-out may be a popular sentencing regime among politicians. Three strikes against DARE didn't matter.
Boot camps evolved from Scared Straight, the original shock-the-kids program based on the assumption that taking children on tours of jails would scare them into lawful behavior. Scared Straight didn't work. Failure didn't matter. It just inspired the next step in shock therapy.
WIDE APPEAL
''Boot camps appealed to everybody,'' said Jeanne B. Stinchcomb, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University. She published a paper last year in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, entitled, tellingly, From Optimistic Policies to Pessimistic Outcomes: Why Won't Boot Camps either Succeed Pragmatically or Succumb Politically?
She said conservatives liked the get-tough image. Liberals liked an alternative to prison. Boot camps were cheap to operate. The idea simply had too many powerful stakeholders for failure to matter.
And the public, Stinchcomb said, embraced boot camps with an ''intuitive faith'' that this was the quick fix for juvenile crime. Everyone loved the images of ''little urban wretches'' marching around like soldiers.
Oh, how we love to combat crime with military metaphors. Unless some brave political leader declares a War on Useless Policies, the failures just won't matter.
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Click Here for Story
Parents turn up heat in boot-camp death
The boy's mom calls it murder. Legislators and the NAACP demand answers.
TALLAHASSEE -- The mother of a 14-year-old boy said Wednesday that her son was "murdered" by guards at a Bay County boot camp for juvenile offenders.
Bay County sheriff's spokeswoman Ruth Sasser would not comment because of the ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 death of Martin Lee Anderson. The Sheriff's Office has said the boy was restrained after he became uncooperative.
The boy's parents joined lawmakers and NAACP spokesman Anthony Viegbesie at a news conference where before-and-after photos of the boy were shown -- one a smiling, skinny kid and the other a bloated version of the boy in his casket.
"My baby was murdered," said Gina Jones, his mother. "Don't let my baby's death be in vain."
"Why would a grown man do this to a 14-year-old boy?" father Robert Anderson asked. "I want some answers."
Also Wednesday, the Legislature's black caucus urged the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to remove himself from the investigation because he previously was Bay County sheriff.
But Gov. Jeb Bush said he remained confident in FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell.
Some legislators, however, weren't as confident in the investigation that has already stretched over about six weeks. Law-enforcement authorities have resisted legal efforts by news organizations and others to release to the public a videotape that lawmakers said shows the boy being beaten.
Lawmakers and the NAACP also called for the arrest of those involved and asked Bush to appoint a special prosecutor.
"It's tragic, but to shut down the boot camps or to have a special prosecutor without having seen the investigation and seeing what needs to be done I think is a little premature," Bush responded.
The Associated Press obtained copies of memos Wednesday from Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen that ordered drill instructors to stop using ammonia capsules on teens suspected of faking unconsciousness. They were written the day Martin died.
An attorney for the Anderson family, Ben Crump, said the guards forced ammonia tablets up the boy's nose in efforts to keep him conscious. Exposure to ammonia can cause eye irritation, coughing, lung damage and even death in high enough concentrations.
The Florida State Conference of the NAACP also said it was filing an injunction seeking release of the videotape that has been seen by some of the governor's aides and at least two state House members.
Viegbesie said the organization also would ask the U.S. Justice Department to investigate whether Martin's civil rights were violated.
Meanwhile, Department of Juvenile Justice officials were grilled Wednesday by a House committee looking for answers on the recent rash of deaths in Florida boot camps. Three teenagers have died in state custody in the past three years.
A Florida State University criminology professor told the House Criminal Justice Appropriations Committee that a national study on boot camps indicates they don't prevent children from becoming repeat offenders and don't make financial sense.
"If they're not working, get rid of them," professor Thomas Blomberg said.
The boot-camp concept in Florida began in 1983 with nine facilities but will soon be whittled to four when a Martin County camp closes later this year. About 600 boys ages 14 to 18 remain in the existing camps.
[ This Message was edited by: Eudora on 2006-02-17 08:55 ]
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On 2006-02-16 06:04:00, Anonymous wrote:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm)
But failure has no bearing on the political popularity of anti-crime programs. No one would dare redirect those billions into softy concepts that lack military terminology or get-tough promises.
WASTE OF TIME
''Why do we still have the DARE [Drug Abuse Resistence Education] program in schools after 20 years when everybody knows it's a waste of time and money?'' asked Aaron McNeece, dean of the Florida State University College of Social Work. It was a rhetorical question. McNeece knows that symbolic solutions to crime count more than results. The DARE program, putting uniformed police officers in classrooms to warn against drugs, has been an especially resilient failure.
In 2001 the U.S. Surgeon General reported that studies of the DARE program ``consistently show little or no deterrent effects on substance use.''
The next year, National Academy of Sciences slammed DARE. The GAO reported ``no significant differences in illicit drug use between students who received DARE and students who did not.''
Three-strikes-and-you're-out may be a popular sentencing regime among politicians. Three strikes against DARE didn't matter.
Boot camps evolved from Scared Straight, the original shock-the-kids program based on the assumption that taking children on tours of jails would scare them into lawful behavior. Scared Straight didn't work. Failure didn't matter. It just inspired the next step in shock therapy.
WIDE APPEAL
''Boot camps appealed to everybody,'' said Jeanne B. Stinchcomb, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University. She published a paper last year in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, entitled, tellingly, From Optimistic Policies to Pessimistic Outcomes: Why Won't Boot Camps either Succeed Pragmatically or Succumb Politically?
She said conservatives liked the get-tough image. Liberals liked an alternative to prison. Boot camps were cheap to operate. The idea simply had too many powerful stakeholders for failure to matter.
And the public, Stinchcomb said, embraced boot camps with an ''intuitive faith'' that this was the quick fix for juvenile crime. Everyone loved the images of ''little urban wretches'' marching around like soldiers.
Oh, how we love to combat crime with military metaphors. Unless some brave political leader declares a War on Useless Policies, the failures just won't matter.
"
Wow. I think this is the most important point to be made out of all of this. I hope everyone really reads and understands this. It explains a whole lot of why these places came about and why they continue to exist.
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I've only started looking at Tunnell, and it doesn't look good so far:
The boot camp was built by Tunnell when he was sheriff of Bay County. Tunnell promoted many of those in charge. And now he's head of the agency investigating the teen's death.
In his statement Thursday, Tunnell said ``the video is evidence gathered as part of FDLE's investigation. Since the investigation is active, the video is exempt from public disclosure.''
Guy M. Tunnell was appointed Commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement on August 26, 2003, by Governor Bush and members of the Cabinet. His term began October 1, 2003.
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/about_fdle/tunnell_bio.html (http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/about_fdle/tunnell_bio.html)
DFAF Advisory Board
http://www.dfaf.org/about/advisoryboard.php (http://www.dfaf.org/about/advisoryboard.php)
Contributor to McKeithen?s campaign
$100-$499 contributions:
http://election.emeraldcoast.com/articl ... php?id=113 (http://election.emeraldcoast.com/article.printformat.db.php?id=113)
Investigates Voter Fraud
?While we conduct this investigation, we are mindful that our number one priority will be to protect the rights of those individuals that are eligible to vote, and allow them the opportunity to do so,? said FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell. ?Our agents will do nothing that will impede or hinder that process.?
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:iPM ... clnk&cd=12 (http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:iPMgs_QmRy0J:election.dos.state.fl.us/pdf/voterFraudFDLE.pdf+%22Guy+M.+Tunnell%22+%2B+florida+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=12)
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On 2006-02-15 05:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"
On 2006-02-14 20:52:00, Anonymous wrote:
"let's see, do you have all of the facts? Do you know if the kid had any undetected medical conditions before going to the camp? Do you know if the toxicology tests revealed he had taken any drugs, especially narcotics, prior to going to the camp?
Have you seen the video? Have you talked to witnesses?
Yes, it is a tragedy. Was it the fault of the guards? Maybe, maybe not. We just do not know yet.
HOWEVER, what you fail to mention and the public and news media fail to mention is that these are not little angels that are at these bootcamps. These are kids who are travelling down the wrong path, committing serious felonies and have burgeoning criminal careers ahead of them. They are heading toward a life of going into and getting out of prison. The boot camps have a better success rate considering recidivism than simple incarceration.
Getting back to this case, until you have all the facts, if you make a decision than YOU are an idiot."
Is TheWho posting anon? Sounds so familiar.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =30#158009 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=12953&forum=9&start=30#158009)
"
That thread is worth a reread to see how this asshole continuously supports and defends ANY program no matter what.
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On 2006-02-16 10:38:00, Anonymous wrote:
Is TheWho posting anon? Sounds so familiar.
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =30#158009 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=12953&forum=9&start=30#158009)
"
That thread
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http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... &forum=9&5 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=14011&forum=9&5)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185172,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,185172,00.html)
PANAMA CITY, Fla. ? A teenager who was beaten by guards in a state-run boot camp for juvenile delinquents died from internal bleeding caused by a blood disorder, not from injuries he may have suffered in the beating, a medical examiner reported Thursday.
Martin Lee Anderson suffered from sickle cell trait, which caused his red blood cells to change shape and produce "a whole cascade of events that led to bleeding and hemorrhaging," said Bay County Medical Examiner Dr. Charles Siebert.
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On 2006-02-16 06:04:00, Anonymous wrote:
" http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13883103.htm)
IN MY OPINION
Boot camps for kids should be given the boot
BY FRED GRIMM http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=0#172848 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=13912&forum=49&start=0#172848)
On 2006-02-13 01:55:00, Eudora wrote:
"Well that didn't take long! First hit from google on '"Everet Rice" dfaf' turned up a quote from and a link to this:
MCTFT, Betty Sembler and Sheriff Rice The Multijurisdictional Counterdrug Task Force Training Office (MCTFT) trains law enforcement and military personnel in state, federal and local governments in America, and police and military officials in other countries throughout the entire world in combating the War on Drugs. The MCTFT is run by the US military through its mighty fighting agent--The Florida National Guard! Prominent on its advisory board is Betty Sembler, President, Drug Free America Foundation, James T. Moore, Commissioner, FDLE (Florida's state police), who has already teamed-up with Betty on at least one initiative and who is on the advisory board for DFAF, Mr. James McDonough, Director, Office Drug Control State of Florida who also sits on the Advisory Board of DFAF, Major General Ronald O. Harrison, Adjutant General of Florida (their national guard) and Sheriff Everett S. Rice, Pinellas County Sheriff's Office. The chairman of the advisory board is Captain Donald R. Martin, head of the training academy for the Virginia State Police. (The Virginia State Police has been a big financial supporter of the Straight-linked PANDAA organization.) MCTFT is headquartered at St. Petersburg College which was just a junior college when the agency was first located near Betty. In by-gone days we at the Oakton Institute have been openly critical of the US government's decision to host a federal program with international reach at a mere junior college. There is good reason to believe that that decision had been influenced because of MCTFT's ties to to America's First Family of the War on Drugs, Mel and Betty Sembler. In 2001 Florida state Senator Donald C. Sullivan (formerly secretary of Straight Foundation) proposed a bill to make Saint Petersburg Junior College a full-fledged university which subsequently it has become. Charlie Crist who is now Florida's attorney general played a role in the renaming too. It is now Saint Petersburg College and University Center. See more here.
http://thestraights.com/articles/bradbury-suit.htm (http://thestraights.com/articles/bradbury-suit.htm)
Who was that other guy? Oh yeah, Stephen Wise, Senator from Jacksonville. Who wants to bet he ran on the Green Party ticket? If you believe that people cannot be trusted to govern themselves,
then can they be trusted to govern others?
--Thomas Jefferson
"
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More from Fred Grimm
Is beating kids at boot camp all in a day's work?
BY FRED GRIMM [email protected]
Try this with your kid at home. See what happens.
Pummel him. Kick him off his feet. Hold him down. Stick a knee in his back. Jerk his head backward. Stick a forearm in his throat. Punch him. Bloody his face. Cram a vial of ammonia up his nose.
Continue the abuse even after the child appears to have lapsed into unconsciousness. Ignore his obvious physical distress.
Do it knowing that a video camera is recording the incident, blow by blow. Do it as if brutalizing a child is just part of your daily routine.
Then, when the kid dies, see what happens.
You know what happens. You're arrested. You go to jail to await trial, which may be the safest place in the community given the public outrage over the death of a physically abused child.
DIFFERENT RULES
But kill a kid in a Florida boot camp, standards change.
Thirty-nine days after Martin Lee Anderson's death, other juveniles are still incarcerated at the boot camp run by the Bay County sheriff.
None of the half-dozen officers who introduced the 14-year-old boy to the camp's regime of physical abuse have been suspended. They're still at work, tending to other children.
When a cop uses deadly force, no matter how necessary, if he takes down a mass murderer on a mad shooting spree, the officer is taken off the streets while the department investigates.
Guards at juvenile boot camp operate in another universe, unshackled by the rules governing other juvenile lockups, or even prisons for adults offenders.
STUNNING VIDEO
The staff at the Panama City camp has thus far avoided even a public reprimand from their boss. Rather, Sheriff Frank McKeithen's harsh words have been aimed at two state representatives from South Florida.
Reps. Gus Barreiro and Dan Gelber, both members of the Juvenile Justice Appropriations Committee, watched the Jan. 6 boot camp video of a half-dozen guards roughing up young Anderson and told reporters they were stunned by what they saw.
Sheriff McKeithen struck back immediately. He released a statement calling Barreiro and Gelber ''loose- cannon politicians,'' whose words were ''irresponsible, premature and incorrect,'' as if these two meddling outsiders had embellished the entire episode. Except a kid died at the sheriff's boot camp. No exaggeration there. Barreiro suggested Monday that maybe that bothersome fact ought to top the list of the sheriff's concerns.
The Republican Barreiro stuck by his graphic description of the tape, so disturbing, so surreal, he said that he felt like screaming at the TV, ``Enough is enough. Leave the kid alone.''
JUST A JOB
For a so-called loose cannon, Rep. Gelber spoke Monday with considerable restraint and measured words. The Democrat made it clear that he was not some let-'em-go liberal, out to crucify law officers, but a former prosecutor, the son of a prosecutor who is married to a prosecutor, is a brother to a prosecutor and a brother-in-law to a prosecutor. What he saw on that tape was an institutional failure, a lack of training, a twisted protocol. ''But what I saw wasn't blood lust,'' he said.
In a way, Gelber said it was even more disturbing than an out-of-control melee. He saw guards who seemed to think they were carrying out their duties. And among their duties was administering an unmerciful ``attitude adjustment.''
Gelber noted that the guards knew a camera was capturing the incident on tape and they didn't bother to hide their gut-wrenching excesses, knocking a 14-year-old around in a way that would get a parent tossed in jail or a cop thrown off the force.
They went about pummeling Martin Lee Anderson as if they were just doing their job.
And those guards are still on the job.
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More video (http://http://www.tallahassee.com/assets/wmv/CD19600217.WMV)
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Fred Grimm ROCKS! Always has!
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
--George Washington
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Wonder what the paramedics who arrived on scene thought of the condition of Martin?
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13898115.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13898115.htm)
......In a report released Thursday, the Bay County Medical Examiner condluded that Martin Lee Anderson, the 14-year-old boy who died after an altercation with guards while in state custody, was killed by complications of sickle cell trait.
But the autopsy report showed none of the signs associated with such a death, a professor at Harvard Medical School said Friday.
''That report is not plausible at all,'' said Dr. Kenneth Bridges, the former director of the Center for Sickle Cell and Thalassemic Disorders in Boston, who reviewed the report at The Herald's request.
Sickle cell trait is not considered a disease. About eight percent of African-Americans have the trait, and the vast majority live their lives without any symptoms. In rare cases, though, the trait may contribute to sudden death caused by extremely vigorous exercise coupled with dehydration.
But the autopsy report of a patient who died in that way would look different than the report on Anderson, Bridges said.
''The problem that leads to death in these individuals is the breakdown of muscle, so when you look at the muscle tissue you see the release of stuff out of the muscle tissue,'' he said. ``He had no evidence of that.''
The muscles of someone who died that way would look swollen and bright red, Bridges said. The condition could also cause kidney failure. The autopsy report said that the muscles of the neck looked normal. It did not indicate a change in muscle appearance or the onset of kidney failure.
The report did note that several organs were congested with sickle-shaped cells. Bridges said that demonstrated that Anderson had sickle cell trait, but did not indicate that the trait had caused his death.
''The presence of the sickle cells occurs in people with sickle trait when they die under any circumstances,'' he said...........
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CNN sued to get the video released. They have the clearest image I've seen, but heavily edited it.
Posted on Fri, Feb. 17, 2006
Florida officials release video of boot camp beating
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER, MARY ELLEN KLAS AND GARY FINEOUT
Knight Ridder Newspapers
PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Five military-style officers hold Martin Lee Anderson as one of them knees him violently in the back of the legs. The teen collapses into a heap on the dirt, where a guard twists his wrist as another grabs at his neck.
Thus it went during some of the last moments of the youth's life: punched in the arms with fists at least 14 times, kneed or kicked repeatedly, subjected to painful wrist locks, smashed and squeezed for at least 90 seconds into a pole, and apparently choked.
A nurse, hands on hips, watches but stays out of the fray for more than 20 minutes.
Through it all, the 140-pound boy remains limp. He doesn't appear to resist. His only movements: his legs writhe while officers spend long moments on top of him.
Martin's final moments at the Bay Boot Camp, contained on a grainy 30-minute videotape, were played on televisions throughout the nation Friday after state investigators released the video in settlement of a public records lawsuit filed by The Miami Herald and CNN.
For more than a month, his mother pleaded with authorities to show her what happened to her son. But when Gina Jones saw the video for the first time Friday, she had to turn away.
``I can't even watch the whole tape,'' she said. ``Martin didn't deserve this right here, at all. ... I knew my baby was in pain and I'm in pain just looking at the tape.
``Martin didn't even have a chance.''
Said Robert Anderson, the teen's father: "Why did they choke my son, beat him, kick him, put their knees all in his back? He was trying to do what they told him to do.''
As they had most of the past month, officials at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is spearheading a criminal investigation, declined to discuss the case. ``The state's criminal investigation remains active,'' Tim Ring, FDLE's regional director in Pensacola, said.
Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen, whose office runs the boot camp for the Department of Juvenile Justice, refused to answer questions about the tape or a controversial autopsy report released Thursday. He read a statement saying the autopsy -which says Martin died of ``natural causes'' - does not ``change the seriousness, complexity or complications of this unfortunate incident.''
``The viewing of this video will result in many questions, concerns and accusations,'' he said. ``We, at no time, have indicated that we believe this incident was handled correctly. As a result of these concerns, several procedural changes have already occurred.''
McKeithen, criticized by black legislators who say he is showing more concern for protecting the actions of boot camp officials than for Anderson's family, refused to answer questions about what changes he has implemented.
His office released a memo, dated Jan. 6, ordering boot camp officials to ``immediately stop the use of'' ammonia capsules - apparently used in the incident with Martin - ``for any purpose other than emergency situations, such as attempting to revive a person who has obviously passed out.''
Camp guards were allowed to use ``chemical agents'' and ``deadly force'' to subdue teens. No more. The sheriff's office also released a memo, written a week after Martin's death, forbidding the use of ``knee strikes and hammer strikes,'' referring to the punches to the arm seen several times on the video, ``unless it is for self-defense.''
On Thursday, Bay County Chief Medical Examiner Charles F. Siebert Jr. released an autopsy report saying Martin died of ``natural causes'' - the result of severe internal bleeding and respiratory distress caused by sickle cell trait, a blood disorder that affects about one in 12 African-Americans.
The report has outraged African-American leaders throughout Florida and the United States who say they suspect Bay County officials of a racist cover-up and accuse boot camp officers of murder.
In a letter to the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Civil Rights - which announced Thursday it was commencing an investigation into Martin's death - the Southern Christian Leadership Conference asked federal authorities to look into whether any youths were safe at Florida's military-style youth lockups.
``It is imperative that the federal government assure the citizens of Florida that our correctional institutions are not places that are high-risk and life-threatening,'' wrote Sevell C. Brown, the group's state president.
Florida's black state lawmakers sent a letter to Gov. Jeb Bush on Friday calling for the ARREST OF THE GUARDS, the appointment of a SPECIAL PROSECUTOR and a NEW CORONER to perform an autopsy.
The letter also questions WHY MARTIN'S BODY WAS ALLOWED TO BE TRANSFERRED FROM PENSACOLA - where he died in a hospital - BACK TO PANAMA CITY FOR THE AUTOPSY.
Bush said such calls are premature. ``I don't believe we should shut down every boot camp because there's this one tragic incident,'' he said.
A basketball player and one-time honor roll student, Martin was sentenced to the boot camp after he violated probation on a grand theft charge. The theft: He went joyriding with relatives in his grandmother's car during a Sunday church service and wrecked the car.
The video, taken by a camp security camera, opens with Martin pushed up against a pole or tree trunk, five uniformed drill instructors surrounding him. One of the officers seems to be pressing much of his body weight against the motionless youth.
Suddenly, one of the officers thrusts his knee into the back of Martin's legs, and the teen collapses to the ground. One officer has his arm in a wristlock; another appears to have his hand around his throat.
At one point, an officer loses his wide-brimmed field hat, and another carefully replaces it on his head.
The restraint on the ground lasts about 90 seconds. The officers try to lift Martin off the ground, but he falls to his knees.
Moments later, Martin is placed on the ground, face-down. Three officers are holding him, while four others watch. An officer punches his arm with a hammer-type fist.
Four officers then lift his flaccid body off the ground. Once again, he falls to the dirt. He lies for several seconds motionless on his back. His legs writhe.
Again, four officers lift him. Again he falls. Again they drag him to his feet, but his legs wobble. As one officer appears to hold his hands on Martin's face, another punches the teen nine or 10 times on his forearm.
In one of the most violent moments, as the officers hold Martin upright, one of them appears to knee him in the back. His body jerks upwards, his head whiplashes and his heels leave the ground.
The officers' ``restraint'' techniques - as officials have called them - appear to last between 20 and 30 minutes.
Near the end, a white-frocked nurse, Kristin Schmidt, finally leans over the teen and removes her stethoscope from her neck. She attends to Martin for several minutes before an ambulance arrives and removes the youth on a stretcher.
State Rep. Gus Barreiro, a Miami Beach Republican whose first viewing of the tape last week added fire to the controversy, said upon seeing it again Friday that the tape still makes him scream at his television screen.
``I keep yelling, `Stop! Don't punch him anymore. He's not moving.'''
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After viewing the video, medical examiner Charles Siebert said he did not consider the restraint measures used to be excessive.
"None of the physical contact I observed could have caused his death," he said. He added that his examination of the body found no evidence of any blunt force trauma or bruising.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/17/bootcamp.death/ (http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/02/17/bootcamp.death/)
"The damage to his internal organs wasn't caused from this alleged sickle cell trait," said Benjamin Crump, a Tallahassee lawyer who represents the family. "He (the medical examiner) doesn't want to address the issue of internal bleeding. . . . What caused this internal bleeding?"
State Rep. Gus Barreiro, a boot camp critic and one of two lawmakers who saw the video last week, also said Siebert's conclusions were baffling. "Either he didn't see the same tape I did or he's trying to cover this up," the Miami Beach Republican said.
"His response is questionable at best," Barreiro said. "This young man could have died from internal bleeding, but what caused it? I think it was the amount of strain and abuse he was put under."
U.S. Rep. George Miller, a California Democrat who called for a federal study of boot camps, issued a statement Thursday encouraging the Department of Justice.
"This investigation should be the beginning of a serious, aggressive, and comprehensive effort by federal agencies and the Congress to make sure that children are totally safe when they are sent - either by the state or by their parents - to residential programs."
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/17/State ... dn_t.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/17/State/Report__Trauma_didn_t.shtml)
Siebert's report created a storm of controversy. Some of Florida's best-known sickle-cell specialists said it couldn't happen. Unlike sickle cell anemia, which causes crippling pain and other health problems, sickle cell trait is silent, they said.
"In 30 years of taking care of children with sickle cell disease, I never, ever heard of anybody dying from sickle cell trait," said Dr. Jerry Barbosa, medical director of pediatric hematology oncology at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg.
Barbosa called the report "totally preposterous, out of context and very unscientific."
But other doctors said there are documented cases of people with sickle cell trait dying suddenly during exercise.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/17/State ... tops.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/17/State/Doctors_debate_autops.shtml)
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http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 902252.htm (http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/13902252.htm)
Experts: Autopsy conclusion `not plausible'
Experts have questioned the autopsy report that concluded 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson died of natural causes while in state custody.
By JACOB GOLDSTEIN http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/State ... oes_.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/State/Unsettling_tape_does_.shtml)
........."It's laughable," said Dr. Jerry Barbosa, medical director of hematology at All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg. "His conclusions are just out of touch with medical reality." In releasing the tape, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said it had "substantially" completed its criminal investigation and had turned over information to state and federal prosecutors.........
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/Opini ... tice.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/Opinion/Boot_camp_injustice.shtml)
.......In fact, before the videotape raised questions, camp officials had offered only two misleading sentences by way of reporting Anderson's death: "During physical training, youth M.A. passed out on the ground and was unresponsive to staff. 911 was immediately notified.".......
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13902242.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13902242.htm)
........McKeithen, criticized by black legislators who say he is showing more concern for protecting the actions of boot camp officials than for Anderson's family, refused to answer questions about what changes he has implemented.
His office released a memo, dated Jan. 6, ordering boot camp officials to ''immediately stop the use of'' ammonia capsules -- apparently used in the incident with Martin -- ``for any purpose other than emergency situations, such as attempting to revive a person who has obviously passed out.''
Camp guards were allowed to use ''chemical agents'' and ''deadly force'' to subdue teens. No more. The sheriff's office also released a memo, written a week after Martin's death, forbidding the use of ''knee strikes and hammer strikes,'' referring to the punches to the arm seen several times on the video, ``unless it is for self-defense.''.........
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Excerpts from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00250.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/18/AR2006021800250.html)
By MELISSA NELSON
The Associated Press
Saturday, February 18, 2006; 4:24 AM
PANAMA CITY, Fla. -- Lawmakers and the family of a teenager seen on videotape being kneed and struck by juvenile boot camp guards are calling for the immediate arrest and prosecution of the guards.
Some lawmakers have called on Bush to appoint an independent prosecutor. A spokesman for Bush said earlier Friday that the governor thought it was too early to consider appointing an independent prosecutor in the case.
[Might that be because he appointed Tunnell- who created the camp- and also appointed McKeithen to his first term as Sheriff, who currently runs the camp? Further, Tunnell is conducting the investigation.]
Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, said the conclusion that Anderson died of natural causes "doesn't add up." "It doesn't make sense and goes against all logic of watching what happened to this young man," he said.
Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, called for any guard who touched Anderson to be arrested. "At the very least it's aggravated battery, at the top of the ladder it's murder," Siplin said.
Near the end of the confrontation, guards appear to become more concerned, and several run in and out of the scene. A few minutes later, emergency medical personnel take him away on a gurney.
[Several cups of water were brought out. Since Anderson was lying on the ground motionless at that time, I assumed they were cleaning blook off his wounds before EMS arrived. He certainly wasn't drinking them.]
There has been research _ some involving recruits at military boot camps _ linking the trait to sudden death after extreme exertion. Experts on sickle cell trait, however, questioned Friday whether the disease could be definitively and entirely to blame for Anderson's death.
"There is a slight, increased risk at the extremes of human endurance, but it really takes a profound amount of exercise and dehydration," said Dr. James Eckman, director of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Grady Health System in Atlanta and a professor at Emory University.
Research shows sudden death with heavy exertion typically happens either in extreme heat and humidity or at high altitude. Weather records show the high temperature was 68 the day Anderson passed out.
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Excerpts from Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/li ... 902252.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/health/13902252.htm)
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''That report is not plausible at all,'' said Dr. Kenneth Bridges, former head of the Center for Sickle Cell and Thalassemic Disorders in Boston and a former associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
But Charles Siebert, Bay's medical examiner, defended his findings and said he used information -- hospital records, a surveillance video of the altercation and statements from medical personnel -- not included in the report.
''I appreciate the comments from other doctors, but it's hard for them to make comments when they don't have all the information,'' Siebert said.
About 8 percent of African Americans have the sickle cell trait. The vast majority, including SCORES OF PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES, live without any symptoms. Sickle cell trait is related to sickle cell anemia, but it's much less serious and isn't considered a disease.
In extremely rare cases, the condition may contribute to sudden death from extremely vigorous exercise coupled with dehydration.
Siebert attributed Anderson's death to ``the stress of the exercise itself in the environment he was in -- you've got your Adrenalin pumping, you're in a new situation at boot camp. Plus the situation with the guards . . . the resisting, the increased physical stress of being in a physical altercation.''
[Resisting? Did he watch the same video? I didn?t see a moment of resistance. I didn?t see any fighting, kicking, to get away. I saw a limp kid being tossed around like a bean bag.]
According to the autopsy report, Anderson suffered a hemorrhage at the back of the abdomen, in the space behind the kidneys. This bleeding sent him into shock and he never recovered, Siebert said.
[How many times did they slam their knee into his back while he was against the pole? Looked like he took a number of kidney punches.]
Experts were skeptical.
''The DIC issue in particular does not make sense,'' Bridges said.
Dr. Stuart Toledano, who treats children with sickle cell disease at the University of Miami, agreed. He said DIC is not typically associated with sickle cell disease, particularly if the patient has not been seriously ill for a prolonged period of time. Toledano added that it was ''extremely unlikely'' that Anderson died as a result of complications from sickle cell trait.
''Bleeding is not part and parcel of sickle cell disease or sickle cell trait,'' he said.
DIC is more commonly associated with an infection of the blood, or with trauma, Bridges said.
The hemorrhage behind Anderson's kidneys could also have been caused by a blow to the back, but Siebert said he ruled this out because there was no sign of such a blow.
[Seriously, was he given an edited version of the video, or is he in on the cover-up, the whitewashing of this boys murder?]
The report noted that several organs were congested with sickle-shaped cells, but Siebert said this can occur as a result of death and does not prove the cause of death.
''The hemorrhage is the real problem here,'' said Dr. Michael Norenberg, a University of Miami pathologist who reviewed the autopsy report at The Miami Herald's request. ''Where does the blood come from? Because bleeding is not a problem in these people'' with sickle cell trait.
Still, Norenberg would not rule out that Siebert's conclusion may be correct.
''The possibility that he did actually die from sickle cell trait for some strange reason is still there,'' Norenberg said. ``But we don't have ANY EVIDENCE FOR IT BASED ON THIS REPORT.''
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The names of the guards have been released:
Charles Helms Jr, 50, who has been suspended without pay twice for violating the code of conduct.
Patrick Garrett, 29, who has also been suspended. Reason was not known.
Raymond Hauck
Henry Kickens
Joseph Walsh
Charles Enfinger
Henry McFadden
Kris Schmidt- Nurse
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/State ... oes_.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/18/State/Unsettling_tape_does_.shtml)
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Sorry, this post lost
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Sorry, this post lost
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It looks like Brother Jeb needs our help. He seems to be under the false impression that this is the first time "something like this" has happened.
http://www.blacknewsweekly.com/news238.html (http://www.blacknewsweekly.com/news238.html)
"My heart goes out to the family," Bush said of Anderson's death. "This is the first time, I believe, that something like this has happened at a boot camp after many years.
"It's tragic, but to shut down the boot camps without having seen the investigation, with having seen what needs to be done, is a little premature."
Lets drop him a line and let him know about other "things like this" that have happened.
[email protected]
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Just sent to Brother Jeb!
Brother Jeb said:
"My heart goes out to the family," Bush said of Anderson's death. "This is the first time, I believe, that something like this has happened at a boot camp after many years.
"It's tragic, but to shut down the boot camps without having seen the investigation, with having seen what needs to be done, is a little premature."
Bullshit! Just ask Mrs. Ambassadorable about that. (asif you didn't know, you cock sucker!)
The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion
Tacitus
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Oh yeah, and the subject header was "Have you seen Jerry Vancil??"
Whoever kindles the flames of intolerance in America is lighting a fire underneath his own home.
--Harold E. Stassen, 1947
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Very well done Ginger!!!!! :tup: :tup: :tup:
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A medical examiner involved in a boot camp death autopsy allowed his license to lapse and once signed a mistake-prone autopsy saying a woman had male genitalia.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER AND MARC CAPUTO [email protected]
Dr. Charles Siebert, who released a controversial autopsy in a teen's boot camp-related death, has been without a medical license for three weeks and recently issued two botched autopsy reports -- one of which listed a mother as having ''unremarkable'' testicles.
Siebert's medical license lapsed Jan. 31, and he's ''in violation'' of state law if he practiced medicine after that date, said a state health department spokeswoman, who was unable to elaborate on Siebert's case due to the Presidents' Day holiday.
Siebert appears to have worked ever since 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson was kneed, choked and wrestled down by seven Panama City boot camp guards Jan. 6. Cause of death: sickle-cell trait, according to an autopsy report released last week by Siebert, who couldn't be reached for comment Monday.
That report, roundly panned by experts on the rare blood disorder that mostly affects blacks, outraged Martin's family members.
But it didn't shock Frances Terry, 57, as she watched the video of Martin's boot-camp altercation unfold on her television set in the small community of Blountstown.
`HE MESSED UP'
''He's a bad doctor. He messed up my daughter's autopsy and my husband's autopsy and I'll bet he messed up the autopsy of that poor boy,'' Terry said Wednesday as she sat next to Martin's mother in the offices of attorney Benjamin Crump.
``He said my daughter had testicles. She didn't. I washed her from the day she was born and, trust me, she didn't have testicles. He said my husband had no scars. He did. He had a seven-inch scar on his back that even a blind person could see.''
Some experts said Monday such errors are fireable offenses.
Terry's husband and daughter were killed by a massive tornado spun off by Hurricane Ivan on Sept. 15, 2004.
Terry said her daughter, Donna Reed, was 34 and had a child long before having her ovaries and uterus removed in major surgery to stop the pain from endometriosis, an organ ailment. Terry said her daughter's gallbladder and appendix were also removed in other surgeries.
Yet the autopsy signed by Siebert on Nov. 29, 2004, notes Donna Reed's three tattoos in depth as well as her ''smooth tan'' appendix, the gallbladder that's ''not distended,'' the ''uterus is not enlarged,'' and that the ``ovaries and fallopian tubes are unremarkable.''
But it was this sentence that really dealt a blow to Frances Terry: ``The prostate gland and testes are unremarkable.''
Also, her 55-year-old husband, James Terry, had a seven-inch scar running along his spine and a nearby four-inch scar. Terry, a truck driver, had back surgery after a load of roof trusses fell on him. But his autopsy, signed by Siebert, said Terry had no scars.
Frances Terry complained about her daughter's autopsy to Steve Meadows, the Panama City-based prosecutor of the six-county 14th Judicial Circuit where Siebert practices.
On Monday, Meadows, through deputy chief Joe Grammer, acknowledged the meeting and blamed the incident on ''transcription errors.'' Grammer said Siebert corrected the errors in a revised report.
CONFIDENCE IN SIEBERT
Grammer said he couldn't confirm the specifics of the allegations Terry made, but ''it probably can be confirmed the woman didn't have testicles.'' He said it was a ''fair statement'' to say that, ''transcription errors'' aside, the prosecutor's office has confidence in Siebert's work.
But Dr. Joseph Davis, retired medical examiner in Miami-Dade, said the questions aren't easy to dismiss. He said that although errors happen, even boilerplate mistakes in an autopsy report render the entire report questionable.
In the past, he said, some pathologists used ''machines'' or templates that allowed the examiner to simply fill in the blanks. ''I would not permit that in my office,'' he said. ``If it's true that he was coming forth with a female who had male gonads, that's not good.''
Broward County's former medical examiner was also surprised by the extent of the errors.
''It happens, but not very often,'' Dr. Ron Wright said. ``A few people do that sort of thing. They usually find different work.''
`I FIRED A GUY'
He added: ``I fired a guy over this. I fired more than one . . . Obviously, it looks really bad.''
The attorney for Martin's family, Crump, is not only questioning Siebert's skills and integrity. He's concerned with Kristin Schmidt, the nurse who stood by and rendered almost no aid as guards grappled and hit Martin for more than 20 minutes.
One mother of a boot camp detainee who witnessed the incident plans to address the news media today to describe how she feared for her son. Shauna Manning told The Miami Herald that Schmidt refused to believe her when she said her son couldn't perform all the camp's required exercises because he has asthma.
Manning said Schmidt told her: ''I don't believe you. He's just trying to get sympathy and get out of the program. That's what these kids do. They use medical issues to try to get out of the program.'' Schmidt couldn't be reached for comment Monday, and has refused comment in the past.
After Martin's death, Manning's son was transferred to a different facility to finish his sentence for burglary. Martin's mother, Gina Jones, said her child was ''murdered'' for stealing his grandmother's car. She said Siebert's autopsy of her son was part of a ``coverup.''
''My baby died from kicks, punches, chokes, you name it,'' she said. ``My baby's nose was swollen; it was broken. My baby's bottom lip was cut, the face was scraped . . . He said no bruises? He said sickle-cell trait? That's a lie.''
Though Martin's autopsy was performed Jan. 6, the day the teen died, the four-page report was not signed by Siebert until Feb. 16, two weeks after his license became ''delinquent,'' according to state Department of Health records. Health department spokeswoman Thometta Cozart confirmed the license had lapsed and said that ``he is not to practice medicine in Florida.''
LICENSE PROBLEM
Dr. Zachariah P. Zachariah, director of cardiology at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale who served on Florida's Board of Medicine for eight years, said a doctor ``cannot practice medicine as soon as he finds out his license is delinquent; he has to cease and desist until he renews his license.''
While the possible punishments for practicing medicine with a lapsed license can vary, Zacharia said one thing is clear: ``That is grounds for discipline.''
Frances Terry said she has a few punishments in mind: ``He should lose his license, and never do something like this again. He should be slapped on both sides of his face for all he's done.''
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Terry said her daughter, Donna Reed, was 34 and had a child long before having her ovaries and uterus removed in major surgery to stop the pain from endometriosis, an organ ailment. Terry said her daughter's gallbladder and appendix were also removed in other surgeries.
Yet the autopsy signed by Siebert on Nov. 29, 2004, notes Donna Reed's three tattoos in depth as well as her ''smooth tan'' appendix, the gallbladder that's ''not distended,'' the ''uterus is not enlarged,'' and that the ``ovaries and fallopian tubes are unremarkable.''
But it was this sentence that really dealt a blow to Frances Terry: ``The prostate gland and testes are unremarkable.''
No, no problem with this doctor. None at all. :roll:
I hope to god people don't let go of this story. It's such a good example of the industry as a whole and on so many particular levels. There's the bootcamp and teen industry issue, civil rights, outright cover ups, incompetence and complete indifference and even outright disdain for "kids t'day". It's all about damage control now.
This thing has teeth though. I hope these few journalists that seem to really get it keep after this.
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Interesting........
Examiner denies calling autopsy request `unusual'
The man who performed Martin Lee Anderson's autopsy apparently thought it was 'highly unusual' to do so at first, but now denies he said that. The teen's family says it's evidence of a coverup.
BY MARC CAPUTO AND CAROL MARBIN MILLER [email protected]
Before he issued a controversial autopsy report on Martin Lee Anderson, Bay County's chief medical examiner said it was ''highly unusual'' that the local sheriff requested him to perform the procedure in the first place because the death did not occur in his county, according to a state report.
Dr. Charles Siebert, though, went ahead with the autopsy and declared that the 14-year-old died as a result of complications from a common genetic condition -- a finding that experts have roundly panned -- and not the kicks, punches and takedowns from the Bay sheriff's own boot camp guards Jan. 5.
Siebert stands by his report, and now denies saying the request was ''highly unusual'' because Martin died in a hospital in neighboring Escambia County, and not in Bay.
The phrase was the only thing put in quotation marks in a Jan. 9 memorandum written by Dr. Shairi Turner, chief medical director of the state's Department of Juvenile Justice. Turner's five-page report is laden with medical-jargon bullet points from her review of documents and her interviews of medical professionals, including Siebert, who came into contact with Martin.
Turner, too, is standing by her memo that quotes Siebert.
''She's confident in that quote. She wrote it down as they were talking,'' said Cynthia Lorenzo, spokeswoman for the DJJ, which oversees the Bay Boot Camp run by the sheriff in Panama City.
But forensic investigator Kelsey Welch, a spokeswoman for Siebert, disagreed.
''He has been misquoted. He said that is very common,'' she said, but could provide no other examples.
Other medical examiners say it's rare -- not unprecedented -- to switch the performance of an autopsy from the jurisdiction in which the death occurred to another when law enforcement agencies request it for convenience. But the controversy is being viewed one way by supporters of Martin's family: as a coverup.
'It's home cookin' '' said Benjamin Crump, lawyer for Martin's family. 'It's more evidence that this is a coverup. As early as Jan. 9, Siebert is wondering: `Why is it brought to me?' And now he's saying he's being misquoted.''
Crump said Martin should have had an autopsy in Escambia County, where he died at Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital. The family is also concerned about ties between the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and thesheriff's office. FDLE Commissioner Guy Tunnell was Bay's sheriff and founded the boot camp. An FDLE spokesman said it's conducting a fair probe.
Jeff Martin, chief investigator for Escambia's medical examiner, said his agency didn't perform Martin's autopsy ''as a courtesy'' to its Bay counterparts and FDLE.
''It's not uncommon to change jurisdiction,'' said Martin, but noted that in his two years in the office he had never seen such a request.
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Sound familiar to anyone?
One mother of a boot camp detainee who witnessed the incident plans to address the news media today to describe how she feared for her son. Shauna Manning told The Miami Herald that Schmidt refused to believe her when she said her son couldn't perform all the camp's required exercises because he has asthma.
Manning said Schmidt told her: ''I don't believe you. He's just trying to get sympathy and get out of the program. That's what these kids do. They use medical issues to try to get out of the program.'' Schmidt couldn't be reached for comment Monday, and has refused comment in the past
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On 2006-02-21 06:16:00, Anonymous wrote:
The phrase was the only thing put in quotation marks in a Jan. 9 memorandum written by Dr. Shairi Turner, chief medical director of the state's Department of Juvenile Justice. Turner's five-page report is laden with medical-jargon bullet points from her review of documents and her interviews of medical professionals, including Siebert, who came into contact with Martin.
That's a very unusual name, isn't it; Shairi Turner?
http://www.cmwf.org/fellows/fellows_sho ... _id=224316 (http://www.cmwf.org/fellows/fellows_show.htm?doc_id=224316)
I knew a girl by that name, well phonetically anyway. Never have been able to find her, but then I was spelling it differently. If this is the woman I knew 23 or so years ago, that is NOT her picture!
If you want a voluntary urine sample from me it'll have to be a taste test.
--Bumper Sticker
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''I don't believe you. He's just trying to get sympathy and get out of the program. That's what these kids do.
How many of these kids who have died in programs have written home about the horrible conditions and/or suicidal feelings? I've seen a few and I'm not even keeping track. :eek:
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I've been posting on this topic on a Panama City Newspaper chat area. You really need to read what these people are saying there. Nine to one are in favor of the treatment that Martin recieved.
Check it out - these people really need an education....
http://bb.emeraldcoast.com/ecforum/viewtopic.php?t=435 (http://bb.emeraldcoast.com/ecforum/viewtopic.php?t=435)
EXAMPLE:
Looking at the tape and being formerly (a long time ago) employed at the Boot Camp I see nothing wrong with what I saw. Three straight arm take downs, one knee strike and two events where a radial arm strike was used. We were not there, we do not know what that young man was doing, saying or anything else. This is monday morning quarterbacking at its finest. I know most of the DIs in that video and can assure you that there is a lot of experiance in that crowd. Those guys would not hurt a child if their life depended on it, but they will protect themselves. If someone had the balls to expose it you might find that this young "angel" was a local member of the "Bloods" and was known to carry a gun when confronted by law enforcement. Being listed in state databases as a gang member might be a bad thing, has anyone checked this angle? This guy was not an angel and his family is far from it. We will leave how I know this a secret, but I do. How come "Daddy" just showed up? What about that loudmouth Senator from Miami. Guess nothing go's on down there for her to run her mouth and sport her gaudy hats about. This is not about race, this is about a criminal going into the system and his body could not take it. JMHO[ This Message was edited by: nite owl on 2006-02-21 20:21 ]
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concerned citizen in Panama City wrote:
OK? The medical examiners report is in and the information shows no wrong-doing on the part of the Boot Camp people. (I know there will be those who say there is some kind of cover-up going on and they will be waiting for the next review of this situation and the next?.) I?m sure there are those who will view the tape and disagree with the findings also. I am writing this before viewing the controversial tape. I can tell you I believe it was the right decision to release the findings before the tape.
My observations/comments on this situation:
1. The death, although unfortunate, was not brought on directly by the boot camp.
2. The death was the direct result of this person committing a crime(and being sent to boot camp).(i.e. if he wouldn?t have committed the crime, he wouldn?t have died at the boot camp)
3. The death was a direct result of the parent(s)/family not bringing up this person properly. How can I say this??? What possesses a kid to steal a car/someone else?s property? This couldn?t have been the first incident of bad behavior. I wish I could check the court records for juveniles but I can?t. I?m sure the judge knew when the sentence to boot camp was made.
4. Although some of us may not like the concept of ?Boot Camp? for young criminals, it does exist and does serve a purpose.
5. Some make the point that the grandmother didn?t want to press charges (which somehow exonerates the family from being part of the problem???) but this is not a civil matter. This is a criminal matter and is the State vs. the accused and therefore the State gets to decide if they want to prosecute or not.
6. While I haven?t reviewed the tape, I suspect that the level of ?violence? seen on it will be no worse than a high school football game. I also suspect that high school football players would end up with even more bumps and bruises after a game than this kid did.
7. I also suspect that the treatment he received was no different than if he would have been a military recruit going through that training program ? that?s why they call it Boot Camp!
8. While some would like to believe the boot camp personnel knocked this kid dead on the spot, he didn?t die until 15 hours later.
9. It would be interesting to know if the ?sickle cell trait? was diagnosed beforehand and if so, who knew about it.
10. People have a higher risk of dying or injury when their behavior is risky?e.g. race car drivers, criminals, athletes, pilots and therefore bear some responsibility for their choice.
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Wonder if the reaction would have been different had it been a young white kid from the suburbs.
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***Those guys would not hurt a child if their life depended on it, but they will protect themselves.
From 'verbal' asault, if that were the case, cause he certainly wan't putting up a fight.
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My observations/comments on this situation:
Ok, you're either a veteran troll, or maybe just a veteran jackass?
1. The death, although unfortunate, was not brought on directly by the boot camp.
2. The death was the direct result of this person committing a crime(and being sent to boot camp).(i.e. if he wouldn�t have committed the crime, he wouldn�t have died at the boot camp)
3. The death was a direct result of the parent(s)/family not bringing up this person properly. How can I say this??? What possesses a kid to steal a car/someone else�s property? This couldn�t have been the first incident of bad behavior. I wish I could check the court records for juveniles but I can�t. I�m sure the judge knew when the sentence to boot camp was made.
4. Although some of us may not like the concept of �Boot Camp� for young criminals, it does exist and does serve a purpose.
5. Some make the point that the grandmother didn�t want to press charges (which somehow exonerates the family from being part of the problem???) but this is not a civil matter. This is a criminal matter and is the State vs. the accused and therefore the State gets to decide if they want to prosecute or not.
6. While I haven�t reviewed the tape, I suspect that the level of �violence� seen on it will be no worse than a high school football game. I also suspect that high school football players would end up with even more bumps and bruises after a game than this kid did.
7. I also suspect that the treatment he received was no different than if he would have been a military recruit going through that training program � that�s why they call it Boot Camp!
8. While some would like to believe the boot camp personnel knocked this kid dead on the spot, he didn�t die until 15 hours later.
9. It would be interesting to know if the �sickle cell trait� was diagnosed beforehand and if so, who knew about it.
10. People have a higher risk of dying or injury when their behavior is risky�e.g. race car drivers, criminals, athletes, pilots and therefore bear some responsibility for their choice.
"
I'm not even going to ask you about your so-called points.
You mean to tell me, that if this kid committed his "crime" - the one of joyriding in his grandmother's car (Hey, grandparents, help me out here - didn't you guys do that shit to goof off when you were kids?) - for which his granmother - the victim in the case did not press charges - that if he were to be released to the custody of his own guardian, that he would have been dead within three hours?
If that's your story, then you make me sicker than a rich, chocolately Ovaltine commercial.Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
William Cowper, a British Christian poet & hymn writer (18th century)
[ This Message was edited by: Helena Handbasket on 2006-02-21 21:11 ]
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Helena, I'm pretty sure the anon posting that borrowed it from the other site they were describing. I assume this much because of the introductory line in the post.
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On 2006-02-21 21:09:00, Helena Handbasket wrote:
"
My observations/comments on this situation:
Ok, you're either a veteran troll, or maybe just a veteran jackass?
1. The death, although unfortunate, was not brought on directly by the boot camp.
2. The death was the direct result of this person committing a crime(and being sent to boot camp).(i.e. if he wouldn�t have committed the crime, he wouldn�t have died at the boot camp)
3. The death was a direct result of the parent(s)/family not bringing up this person properly. How can I say this??? What possesses a kid to steal a car/someone else�s property? This couldn�t have been the first incident of bad behavior. I wish I could check the court records for juveniles but I can�t. I�m sure the judge knew when the sentence to boot camp was made.
4. Although some of us may not like the concept of �Boot Camp�for young criminals, it does exist and does serve a purpose.
5. Some make the point that the grandmother didn�t want to press charges (which somehow exonerates the family from being part of the problem???) but this is not a civil matter. This is a criminal matter and is the State vs. the accused and therefore the State gets to decide if they want to prosecute or not.
6. While I haven�t reviewed the tape, I suspect that the level of �violence�seen on it will be no worse than a high school football game. I also suspect that high school football players would end up with even more bumps and bruises after a game than this kid did.
7. I also suspect that the treatment he received was no different than if he would have been a military recruit going through that training program �that�s why they call it Boot Camp!
8. While some would like to believe the boot camp personnel knocked this kid dead on the spot, he didn�t die until 15 hours later.
9. It would be interesting to know if the �sickle cell trait�was diagnosed beforehand and if so, who knew about it.
10. People have a higher risk of dying or injury when their behavior is risky�e.g. race car drivers, criminals, athletes, pilots and therefore bear some responsibility for their choice.
"
I'm not even going to ask you about your so-called points.
You mean to tell me, that if this kid committed his "crime" - the one of joyriding in his grandmother's car (Hey, grandparents, help me out here - didn't you guys do that shit to goof off when you were kids?) - for which his granmother - the victim in the case did not press charges - that if he were to be released to the custody of his own guardian, that he would have been dead within three hours?
If that's your story, then you make me sicker than a rich, chocolately Ovaltine commercial.Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
William Cowper, a British Christian poet & hymn writer (18th century)
[ This Message was edited by: Helena Handbasket on 2006-02-21 21:11 ]"
Well,you got that right.You sho...got that right!
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On 2006-02-21 21:09:00, Helena Handbasket wrote:
If that's your story, then you make me sicker than a rich, chocolately Ovaltine commercial
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:
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1. The death, although unfortunate, was not brought on directly by the boot camp.
2. The death was the direct result of this person committing a crime(and being sent to boot camp).(i.e. if he wouldn?t have committed the crime, he wouldn?t have died at the boot camp)
3. The death was a direct result of the parent(s)/family not bringing up this person properly. How can I say this??? What possesses a kid to steal a car/someone else?s property? This couldn?t have been the first incident of bad behavior. I wish I could check the court records for juveniles but I can?t. I?m sure the judge knew when the sentence to boot camp was made.
Someone needs a course in logic. This is crap. This is like blaming the passenger of a cab for an accident because the cab would not have been there if the passenger hadn't hired it. This teen did not invite his own death in any way. He was entrusted into the care of adults who did not properly care for him. They were paid to care for him. His crimes are irrevelent.
4. Although some of us may not like the concept of ?Boot Camp? for young criminals, it does exist and does serve a purpose.
The purpose is monetary and political and has nothing to do with helping teens. The recidivsm rate is higher than traditional detention and so there is no valid reason for their existence.
5. Some make the point that the grandmother didn?t want to press charges (which somehow exonerates the family from being part of the problem???) but this is not a civil matter. This is a criminal matter and is the State vs. the accused and therefore the State gets to decide if they want to prosecute or not.
You are missing the point. The opinion is that perhaps the State should have stayed out of it (intervention is not mandatory) and let the family handle it.
6. While I haven?t reviewed the tape, I suspect that the level of ?violence? seen on it will be no worse than a high school football game. I also suspect that high school football players would end up with even more bumps and bruises after a game than this kid did.
Are you suggesting that the legistators that viewed it and described it as horrifyng would feel the same about a football game? Are you really this stupid or just baiting us?
7. I also suspect that the treatment he received was no different than if he would have been a military recruit going through that training program ? that?s why they call it Boot Camp!
Your ignorance on teen boot camps is appalling. They would never dare treat military recruits like they treat these kids. There is no evidence to suggest that military boot camp is capable of rehabilitating anyone and the military does not use boot camps for this purpose. Other than the name, there is no comparison and you insult the military by suggesting there is.
8. While some would like to believe the boot camp personnel knocked this kid dead on the spot, he didn?t die until 15 hours later.
Totally irrevelant. If you shoot someone and it takes 15 hours for them to die, you are still guilty of murder.
9. It would be interesting to know if the ?sickle cell trait? was diagnosed beforehand and if so, who knew about it.
Experts and doctors from around the country have stated the coroner's finding that sickle cell trait caused this death is at the least dubious and at most impossible.
10. People have a higher risk of dying or injury when their behavior is risky?e.g. race car drivers, criminals, athletes, pilots and therefore bear some responsibility for their choice.
"
The boy's behavior was no longer his choice. Once again, he was placed in the care of adults who became responsible for his wellbeing. They beat him. Get it? They beat him. They beat a child. I don't know what podunk shit hole (Florida?) you are living in, but where I live hitting children is against the law. They should be arrested for the beating and charged with child abuse and assault. Let's throw in reckless endangerment. And of course, possibly murder.
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"That's what they call pain compliance," Lewen said.
Camp rules allowed force
In 2004, state officials promised to use less force at juvenile facilities. But those rules never applied to Florida's boot camps.
By ALEX LEARY and CURTIS KRUEGER
Published February 25, 2006
TALLAHASSEE - A month into his job, Anthony Schembri already was making a splash.
The new head of Florida's juvenile justice agency ceremoniously declared the end of aggressive force toward children in state facilities.
"You can't teach compassion by modeling callousness, and you can't teach respect for the law if you are showing disrespect," Schembri said in the summer of 2004.
Unnoticed, however, was that Schembri's reforms did not apply to workers at juvenile boot camps.
Now, with the camps thrust into the spotlight, some question if the exemption cost a 14-year-old boy his life.
"When you have a policy to protect kids it has to go across the board," said Rep. Gus Barreiro, R-Miami Beach, who has become a leading boot camp critic since last month's death of Martin Lee Anderson in a Panama City, Fla., boot camp.
The death came after Anderson was pushed, punched and kneed by a half-dozen drill instructors and is the subject of a criminal investigation. It has also triggered policy changes that could ban the use of force at boot camps.
Critics say that means juvenile justice officials are now doing what Schembri did not do two years ago.
"What do you say to (Martin's) mother? Now we understand it wasn't a good idea not to apply that policy to everyone?" Barreiro said. "Sorry doesn't cut it. He'll never come home."
Schembri, the brash-talking New Yorker who was the model for the TV show The Commish, declined to be interviewed for this story.
A spokeswoman said Friday that he did not include boot camps in the Youth Rights Policy because boot camps have a different philosophy toward rehabilitation than other juvenile programs.
"It's not like one size fits all," Cynthia Lorenzo said. Schembri, she said, knew local sheriffs operated the boot camps and their staff had "superior training" to that of other juvenile justice personnel.
But that training provides greater latitude for the type of tactics used on Martin Anderson.
"They've created a culture that is susceptible to abuse," said Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, a former federal prosecutor.
Gelber said that even within the boot camps there are different standards of force. "With what we have now, I'm not sure what the limits are," he said.
* * *
Critics say the differing standards reflect the clout of Florida's sheriffs.
"Schembri doesn't want to offend the good old boy network, the guys that believe that bashing a kid's face into a wall works. Sheriffs have huge leverage," said Clearwater activist Cathy Corry.
"The sad reality is the multitude of kids who are abused or neglected and the public doesn't know about it because they didn't die," said Corry, who runs http://www.justice4kids.org (http://www.justice4kids.org). a Web site critical of the Juvenile Justice Department.
Lorenzo could not say Friday whether Schembri spoke to sheriffs about the policy change in 2004.
Whatever the case, he was not breaking tradition. Sheriff's offices have been permitted more leeway since youth boot camps began in Florida in 1993.
Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells, who opened the first boot camp, said the in-your-face tactics were seen as integral.
"It's a control factor ... The boot camp would fall flat on its face without that initial intake," he said.
Wells pointed out that Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles and fellow Democrats controlled state government at the time and the concept was "unilaterally accepted."
The Department of Juvenile Justice did not exist then; the former Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services oversaw boot camps. The thinking at the time was sheriffs' employees were already subject to extensive training and did not need what HRS could offer, Lorenzo and others said.
Those regulations come under the state's Criminal Justice Standards and Training Commission, a longstanding panel that governs law enforcement.
Most boot camp employees are trained under the defensive tactics component, which in 624 pages spells out how to take down subjects and apply some of the very moves - hammerlocks, shoulderlocks and pressure points - barred in other juvenile facilities. Those facilities, which include wilderness camps and standard juvenile detention facilities, follow the more restrictive Protective Action Response policy.
"Too many youth have been injured in incidents with these techniques," Schembri said in 2004. "While these holds may be appropriate for an adult population, experience has shown us that it is too easy to injure a young person when applying these holds. Physical restraint should be applied only to prevent a youth from hurting himself or others."
His memo disclosing those reforms did not mention that boot camps were not affected.
* * *
The omission potentially affected scores of youths, including Sean Matthew Lewen of Pinellas Park, who went through the Bay County boot camp last year.
Lewen said he was sent to the camp after he faced charges of battery, burglary and violation of probation.
The 18-year-old told the St. Petersburg Times a drill instructor held down his thumb and pushed on a pressure point - the underside of his wrist. "It hurt," he said. "It made me shut up."
Although staff members at boot camps, jails and other institutions generally are trained in ways to restrain unruly inmates, Lewen said drill instructors in Bay County used some of these methods make inmates comply.
"If they saw we were doing anything wrong, that's when they hurt us," Lewen said.
One day, he said, he was sitting in the boot camp classroom when a drill instructor told him to put his things under his desk.
When he said he already had, the drill instructor pulled him out of his chair and called in on his radio a "signal 93" for "insolence," Lewen said. That brought another drill instructor into the classroom.
Lewen said he was squirming as the drill instructor pulled his hands behind his back, and "that's when he started to pull my thumb back and pressure point me."
Lewen said the drill instructors took him outside to a dirt field and had him do a "low crawl" through the dirt. He said he also was told to do sprints across the field and that he was given a dustpan and told to "paint the dirt," by smoothing it all out. He said he was then told to fill two buckets with dirt and sprint across the field carrying them.
Lewen said he saw drill instructors using the wrist pressure point technique on youths about a dozen times during his six months in the boot camp.
"That's what they call pain compliance," Lewen said.
Lorenzo, the juvenile justice spokeswoman, said state confidentially rules did not allow her to confirm if Lewen was an inmate at a state boot camp. However, she said: "Any allegation of abuse is taken very seriously by our agency. They are throughly investigated, and if substantiated further action is taken to the full extent."
Lewen said he received a high school diploma in boot camp. But half a year later, he said he is still angry about the experience.
"It filled my heart with hate, that's it," he said.
* * *
Chris Caballero, second in command at the Department of Juvenile Justice, said it is too early to tell if the Bay County boot camp guards exceeded the more lenient standards in the Anderson case.
But juvenile justice officials already have taken steps to create a more uniform policy. A tentative list of changes that surfaced this week bar use of pain compliance at boot camps.
Some could see that as an acknowledgement that past practices fell short of the principles Schembri extolled two years ago.
"Hindsight is always 20/20," Caballero said. "It's like when an accident happens at an intersection without a red light. The first thing everybody usually does is call for a red light."
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Here's the link to the story above. http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/25/State ... d_fo.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2006/02/25/State/Camp_rules_allowed_fo.shtml)
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Here's a reply to this story by someone from Panama City with the user name of Concerned Citizen. I asked this person what would be appropriate punishment for a child...
Punishment for me would be to be detained, unable to have the freedoms I am used to, forced to do things that I did not want to do and taken away from my job. The last time this happened to me it was called "jury duty".
I believe that detention alone is not good enough for criminals. They need to be required to work/exercise in some manner to pay back their detention as well as recognize that they don't get to decide what they want to do all the time. Unfortunately, if they don't agree and resist, we need to find ways to overrule their decision.
The thing that concerns me is that too many people are applying standards that they would succumb to, against the criminal trash that we should care less about. I'm not proposing we torture people in jail but we need some way to escalate the discipline to fit increasing resistance. It isn't like we can throw them in jail if they resist-- they're already there!
http://bb.emeraldcoast.com/ecforum/view ... 5&start=15 (http://bb.emeraldcoast.com/ecforum/viewtopic.php?t=435&start=15)[ This Message was edited by: nite owl on 2006-02-26 20:52 ]
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Boy, 14, tells of boot camp beatings
A boy who says he witnessed the beating of Martin Lee Anderson recalled what he saw and heard at the Panama City boot camp.
BY MARC CAPUTO [email protected]
The screaming guards. The pressure points. The knee takedowns. The acrid ammonia stick shoved in the face of a rubber-legged 14-year-old named Martin Lee Anderson.
Aaron Swartz can't forget any of it. Not because he saw it all the way most people did -- in a grainy videotape of the guards and Martin before his death -- but because Aaron was there, at Bay County Boot Camp, receiving much of the same violent treatment that still makes him shudder miles away from it all.
''They killed that boy. They didn't help him. They beat him,'' Aaron, also 14, told The Miami Herald in one of the first eyewitness -- and earwitness -- accounts of the dehumanizing experience of life at the Panama City lockup before, during and after Martin's arrival.
Like every kid who's about to enter the Bay Boot Camp, Aaron said Martin lost his first name. From the moment he arrived Jan. 5, he was called ''Offender Anderson,'' just like Aaron was ''Offender Swartz.'' Actually, the names -- and slurs and everything else -- were screamed at them by ''drill instructors,'' who slammed boys against concrete walls, shoved their thumbs in a painful pressure point behind their ears, and forced them to respond with a ``Sir, yes sir!''
And just like every kid's hair, Martin's braids were shaved off aggressively by a mocking DI. It was there, as Martin sat in the barber chair, that Aaron first saw him. And Martin had the look: ''scared, like everybody else,'' Aaron said.
As Aaron tells it, time at the camp was measured in fear and pain, in increments of forced exercise, wall-slams, pressure points, knee takedowns and hammer-fist punches by DIs who video-taped it all. When the boys would go to bed, he said, they could hear the DIs watching the tapes in a nearby room, cheering on their greatest hits as if watching a sporting event.
''The stuff they did to him, they do to everybody everyday. I've never seen somebody get pressure-pointed that many times at once, but it's pretty much like that everyday,'' he said.
The medical treatment wasn't much better. Aaron said the camp is a place where the nurse, Kristin Schmidt, more often dispensed the term ''malingerer'' -- rather than medicine -- when kids said they were hurt or sick.
Despite suffering from asthma and a chest infection, he said, Schmidt refused to give him anything but Sudafed for more than a month. After Martin's death, a doctor finally saw him and put him on antibiotics.
Martin's death is under investigation. No charges have been filed. A new medical examiner will review the autopsy -- and might exhume Martin -- to verify whether he died from an exertion-related blood disorder, as the Bay County medical examiner found. Sheriff Frank McKeithen said last week he'll soon close the camp.
COVERUP CHARGED
Like Martin's family, Aaron thinks there's a coverup. He believes he overheard one guard repeatedly talking of ''revising'' and changing a report or reports, but he doesn't know which ones. He said around 6 p.m. on Jan. 6 a camp counselor told the boys Martin had died of natural causes -- only about two hours after Dr. Charles Siebert finished the autopsy.
Siebert said Saturday that nobody could determine the cause of death that soon, and he later thought a sickle-cell trait might be to blame. But he had to wait for lab results.
''I had no physical evidence of any trauma or injury that could have caused or contributed to his death, therefore I had to wait for further evidence to determine his cause of death,''
Siebert said in an e-mail of his controversial autopsy report, which Martin's family disputes. Siebert said he later reviewed reports from the guards saying Martin resisted them. Siebert said the reports indicated Martin was aware and able to respond verbally.
The Bay County Sheriff's Office will not discuss the case. The DIs could not be reached. The nurse won't comment.
Florida public-records laws prohibit access to juvenile records for living children such as Aaron. He was convicted for a store break-in; Martin for joyriding in his grandma's car.
Aaron's mother, Shuana Manning, spoke in general terms last week to the news media about what her son saw. She produced copies of handwritten letters that Aaron sent from the camp -- signed: ``Offender Swartz.''
Aaron spoke to The Miami Herald for more than an hour at his mother's Tallahassee-area home during a weekend break Saturday from a Panhandle wilderness camp. He was sent there three weeks after Martin's death.
Aaron said he hasn't seen the video of Martin's beating.
The video opens up with youths running around in a circle, typical on ''intake day'' when the DIs made them run 16 laps and perform multiple push-ups and sit-ups. Martin was doing well, but then he staggered, stopped and fell.
''They should have known he wasn't faking because it was his last lap,'' Aaron said.
DI Charles Steven Enfinger made a beeline for Martin and ''slammed him up against the wall,'' he said.
''He's one of the most violent ones, he likes to slam you and stuff. They all come to work, every day, and try to slam somebody. It's like you can tell by the way they act,'' Aaron said.
DI Henry Lincoln McFadden soon joined Enfinger, said Aaron, noting the two men yelled in Martin's face.
Soon, everyone had finished their exercises and had to sit down nearby, eyes forward. Aaron said he shifted his glance slightly to watch Martin. He said he was too far away to hear everything Enfinger and McFadden were yelling, but never heard any type of response from Martin.
Here's what he heard: ''Point 99 on Offender Anderson.'' It was McFadden and Enfinger reporting in radio code that they had applied a pressure-point behind Martin's ear. After seven of those, Aaron stopped counting. He said he also saw and heard the ''knee takedown'' on Martin.
One DI watching over Aaron and the others laughed: ''Offender Anderson's going to have a long day.'' Aaron said multiple guards joined in, and Cpl. Joseph Walsh used so much exertion that he worked up a sweat. He said Enfinger struck Martin repeatedly on the arm, which is reflected in the video.
''And the nurse comes over there. She's watching. She's standing there,'' he said. Soon she applied an electronic pulse reader to Martin's finger that beeps with every heart beat. ''It was like beep-beep-beep-beep,'' Aaron said quickly.
SUDDEN CONCERN
Finally, the tone of the DI screaming started to change from angry to concerned when Walsh said: ''Get the red bag!'' The bag had ammonia sticks in it, which the guards would crack open and press against the offenders' noses to revive them to perform more exercises. A DJJ official said last week that using ammonia in this nonmedical way was against policy. Aaron said he had been dosed once when he was about to pass out from exercise. ''It burns,'' he said.
But the ammonia didn't revive Martin. And soon they could hear the sirens. The boys were led inside. Martin was whisked away only hours after arriving at the camp.
The following evening, about 15 hours after Martin was pronounced dead, Aaron said, the mental health counselor named ''Ms. Miki'' told them that ``it was completely medical. . . . Athletes die every day, all the time, for medical reasons -- that healthy athletes stop and die so it's not unusual.''
Said Aaron: ``I don't think that's true at all. Even if it was medical, when he passed out, if they would have set him down and then gave him medical help right then, I think they could have saved his life and everything. But instead, they did all pressure-pointing, slammed him, beating up on him and everything.''
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Interesting Google results for ?Boot camp death (http://http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWI,RNWI:2004-51,RNWI:en&q=boot+camp+death).
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14034885.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14034885.htm)
BOOT CAMP DEATH Boot camp nurse who walked away is under fireThe actions of a nurse assigned to monitor the health of teen boys at the Bay Boot Camp in Panama City are under scrutiny after the death of Martin Lee Anderson.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER [email protected]
On the morning of Jan. 5, eight officers in wide-brimmed military hats stood prepared to do whatever was necessary to guard against the vices of sloth and disobedience at a Panama City juvenile boot camp. Nurse Kristin Anne Schmidt had a different task. Clad in a white lab coat, Schmidt's job was to guard against other dangerous threats: fatigue, dehydration and hidden ailments that can lead to physical distress among youths engaged in rigorous exercise at the camp.
That morning, in what were certainly the most fateful moments of Schmidt's medical career, the eight officers punched and kneed 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson while Schmidt stood a short distance away looking on. Minutes later, after Schmidt examined him with a stethoscope, the teen left the boot camp on a stretcher, unconscious and not breathing. Within hours, he was dead.
Medical ethicists say Schmidt's actions that day are the most telling example, since the 2003 appendicitis death of a teen at the Miami juvenile lockup, of how the decisions of healthcare workers in jails or prisons are fraught with danger if they conflate the ethics of a penal system with those of their own profession.
''When judgment calls have to be made, you must err on the side of protection,'' said Arthur Caplan, chairman of the medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. ``She was there as a nurse. She was not there as a guard.''
`A REAL RISK'
In penal settings, Caplan added, ``There's a real risk that nurses and doctors will grow a pair of handcuffs, or grow a baton.''
Schmidt, 52, may face trouble on two fronts: a special prosecutor, who is investigating the circumstances of Martin's death, and the state Board of Nursing, which oversees the profession. Both Benjamin Crump, the attorney for Martin's family, and an unidentified Florida nurse have filed complaints against Schmidt with the state.
There is precedent for charging healthcare workers with a crime when prosecutors feel they failed to help juveniles in distress.
In Miami, a grand jury indicted two nurses on charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of 17-year-old Omar Paisley. The youth died of a ruptured appendix at the Miami-Dade juvenile lockup after medical staff allegedly ignored his pleas for help.
The nurses are awaiting trial. The prosecution, which is extremely rare, will not be easy -- essentially trying to prove something should have been done and wasn't -- said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.
''We had a lot of lawyers with different opinions about the case,'' Rundle said. ``But I'm a parent. And you just think of a child treated in this way, and it's heart-wrenching. It is intolerable in a civilized nation like ours. It is unspeakable that these things happen here.''
Schmidt, a registered nurse, has declined requests for an interview. She has worked at the Panama City boot camp, which operates under a contract with the state Department of Juvenile Justice, since it opened in 1994. Unlike the guards involved in the incident that day, who have been placed in positions where they have no contact with the youths at the camp, there was no change in Schmidt's status.
Schmidt attended Alfred University School of Nursing in New York, from 1977 to '79, according to her Florida Board of Nursing application.
From 1984 to 1986, records show Schmidt worked at the Anneewakee Hospital, a treatment center and wilderness camp for about 150 troubled boys in Carrabelle, in the Panhandle. The treatment center was closed in 1986 amid allegations of widespread abuse and molestation of children.
The Herald has found no evidence Schmidt was involved in any incident.
Following Anneewakee's closure, Schmidt went to work at Florida State Hospital, a 1,100-bed locked mental hospital in Chattahoochee, where she was a senior registered nurse coordinator.
FINED $250
In 1991, Schmidt worked at the Rivendell Psychiatric Center in Panama City. In August 1992, while at the mental hospital, state medical regulators charged Schmidt with failing to keep proper records of how she dispensed tranquilizers. Schmidt was reprimanded and fined $250, records show.
Between 1992 and 1994, Schmidt worked for a nursing home, a home health agency and the American Red Cross.
Since going to work at the Bay Boot Camp, she has earned consistently high marks on her performance evaluations. Schmidt, who is paid $38,155 a year, was praised in her June 2005 evaluation as ''a longtime employee that does her job well,'' as ''consistent and dependable'' and who ``works in the best interest of all involved.'' As for her observation of ''established rules and regulations,'' Capt. Mike Thompson wrote that Schmidt ``does things by the book.''
Shortly after Martin Anderson's death, Schmidt told a Juvenile Justice official that her role in the boot camp's exercise yard ``was to monitor the entire group [of new inmates] for labored breathing, irregular movements [and] any form of physical distress during the exercise drills.''
Schmidt made the comments to Dr. Shairi R. Turner, the department's chief medical director, who wrote a report on the teen's death.
Schmidt first noticed Martin while he was ''against the wall'' with 'drill instructors on either side of him to `maintain control,' '' Turner's report said. 'He was noted at times to be on his feet and then laying down during the `use of force techniques.' ''
`COULD NOT BREATHE'
While Schmidt was checking Martin's heart rate, he told her ''he could not breathe,'' Turner wrote.
But the nurse took no action, saying ``he appeared comfortable and in no respiratory distress.''
That was Schmidt's first mistake, said Nancy Hamilton, chief executive officer of St. Petersburg's Operation PAR drug treatment program and president of the Florida Juvenile Justice Association.
''In our world, your obligation is first to the client,'' Hamilton said. 'I don't care if the client is faking it. You call 911 and get him to the hospital. Then you deal with him faking it later on. You never take a chance when someone says, `I can't breathe.' ''
''I would rather deal with the expense of a hospital visit than a dead child any day,'' Hamilton added.
A videotape of the incident shows that 15 to 20 minutes elapsed between Schmidt's first contact with Martin and the next time she examined him. Schmidt spent most of that time observing officers as they punched, kneed and applied pressure points to Martin as he remained limp.
Schmidt 'stayed by the youth and watched for `any distress,' '' Turner wrote of her debriefing of the nurse. 'When she noted the youth stopped `fully complying' with the officers, she went inside to retrieve [the sergeant] to make him aware of the situation,'' Turner wrote.
'When they returned to the youth, he stated that `he could not see and he could not breathe,' '' Turner added.
Paramedics arrived within four minutes , the report said. On the tape, Martin is lifted onto a stretcher, his arm dangling from the side.
Kenneth Goodman, who heads the University of Miami's bioethics program, calls Schmidt's behavior a cautionary tale for medical professionals who work in corrections programs:
``In environments like this, all bets are off because you're not merely doing healthcare.
``You're in a highly charged situation, and I would imagine the pressure on her is to accommodate her law enforcement colleagues.''
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Another interesting Google search
you Momma is a big fat's ________
--Leroy Brown
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You can find articles and view the video of Martin's death at http://www.caica.org/NEWS%20DEATHS%20Martin%20Main.htm (http://www.caica.org/NEWS%20DEATHS%20Martin%20Main.htm)
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When I read about this I cried for the boy and his family. It seems to me that Boot Camps are not the answer. Try showing these kids love and respect and maybe they will give it back. The "system" has to take full responsibility for this cruel act of torture that killed a 14 year old boy. The boy took his grandmother's car for a joy ride. How many of us have done that as children. That has been going on since the car was invented. This boy did not have to be beat to death over an act of irresponsibility.
My God he was 14 years old, he has the right
to act irresponible. I pray for the grandmother who called the aurthorities on this boy. She thought she was doing him good. She has to live with this crisis the rest of her life. I think we need to pull our children closer to us and know that they will do things we don't approve of. They might even break the law. But they dont deserve to die for it!
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If I understand correctly:
1) Martin didn't actually take his grandmother's car himself; he was with several cousins who decided to go joyriding and he just went along for the ride (which makes him *legally* responsible, but not so clearly *morally* responsible).
2) The grandmother didn't want to press charges, but because the joyride ended in an accident, the authorities decided to prosecute anyway. So she's pretty much blameless.
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From what I've read I think you understood correctly.
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There is only one kid who was killed Matin Lee Anderson. You might have been confused because his mother's name is Jones and not Anderson. I live in Panama City so this shit is even more real to me and my friend's brother is one of the drill instructors. I think that he is the stupidest SOB on the planet and I know that he is going to go to jail and that the Boot Camp WILL be shut down in April thanks to Sheriff McKeithen's efforts. I also know that this is also going to put a lot of innocent people out of their jobs.
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Are you so sure many of those people are that innocent, that work in those places? How innocent can they be when all this abuse is so rampant? Don't they see, why don't they report it like they should? Isn't it law that if professionals working with children in any capacity must report abuse? I'm sure some employees are innocent and good, but I wonder how many are not?
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how can I send condolences to the family. I have been crying for days. It would help if I could express my sadness and outrage. please email me an address. [email protected]
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I quite agree, MomCat. Ask any cop, DA or judge; ignorance is no defense.
Look, these people, from Guy Tunnell and all of his buddies in FDLE all the way down to the lowliest camera guy or kitchen lady all should know better than to treat human beings the way they do. But they don't know it. They really don't. They can't see it because they don't want to. What they see is rebellious, bad kids who deserve to be beat down for their own good and the good of society.
Same thing happened in Germany and Austria and Italy in the daze leading up to WWII. Remember this, if nothing else. Many of the people who provide political cover and protection for these toughlove hate group operations have done this to their very own children. If it were just a couple of errant, sadistic guards, we could just prosecute them and be done with it. It's not that at all. What we're looking at is deep seated and complete religious indoctrination.
I'm truly sorry for your friend and his brother. I bet he will land up in prison. And, having been not only a CO, but CO over children, he's not going to have an easy time of it. Worse? He'll start his time with his head still swimming, reeling with protestations "But I'm a good guy! I didn't do anything wrong! It wasn't supposed to be this way!" But it is this way and we each are responsible for our own actions, regardless of what the hell we thought we were doing.
But I believe there's a special place in Hell for those who lead others astray. I just hope there's a Janet Karpinski somewhere into this mix with the moxie, integrity and credibility to make sure that the people who have been responsible for this madness over the past 30 years get what's coming to them.
I'm not talking about tit for tat vengeance, either. I'm talking total dispossession of the authority to fuck with our children in the future. That may seem like light punishment, but it's not. Believe me, the worst hell you could wish on these people would be to have to see themselves for what they really are instead of the self serving nobel hero fantasy world they live in now.
Hands that help are far better then lips that pray.
--Robert G. Ingersoll, American politician and lecturer
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murdering thugs?!! i've been following the georgia case closely and it seems to be a bunch of mistruths propogated against the counselors by the state to avoid a lawsuit. i had always thought about becoming a teacher, but i will never work with kids or for the state because it is too dangerous. you go to work with good intentions, a tragedy ocurrs that could've happened to anyone, and suddenly people call you a murdering thug. no thank you, i'll just work a desk job.
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Well, if you have significant contact w/ operations run by Drug Free America Foundation, Florida Department of Law Enforcement or any of a number of other organizations using the same methods and you can't extrapolate that some kids are going to die by what you're helping to do, then you're not necessarily murderous but just too dumb to breath, unworthy of the priviledge and dangerously self deluded.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of it's victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy-bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those that torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
C.S. Lewis, God In The Dock
What was done with the seed saved from the India Hemp last summer? It ought, all of it, to have been sewn again; that not only a stock of seed sufficient for my own purposes might have been raised, but to have disseminated the seed to others; as it is more valuable than the common Hemp.
George Washington, Writings of Washington, Vol. 35, pg. 72
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On 2006-03-29 11:29:00, Anonymous wrote:
"murdering thugs?!! i've been following the georgia case closely and it seems to be a bunch of mistruths propogated against the counselors by the state to avoid a lawsuit. i had always thought about becoming a teacher, but i will never work with kids or for the state because it is too dangerous. you go to work with good intentions, a tragedy ocurrs that could've happened to anyone, and suddenly people call you a murdering thug. no thank you, i'll just work a desk job."
Denying a kid an inhaler or piling on top of him is not something that could have happened to anyone.
How stupid do you have to be to *not* give an asthmatic
Newsflash: If you can write off a dead kid as "something that could have happened to anyone," then as a mother I certainly don't want you working around kids. I don't know any parent who would.
I think you're right that you should do something else for a living.
Why do you think it would matter to us or anyone else if you decided to do something else for a living?
Julie
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er... not give an asthmatic his inhaler
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OH Jesus , how sad this situation is. I am so happy to have gone to the March. I heard little things here and there. But, did not know the whole story until I was at the March. I am a mother of two and could not imagine in amy way Ms. Jones pain. I will continue to support the anderson/Jones family amy way I can. I also will continue to keep them in my prayers. God, will see justice done. Also, to the family pray and stay strong.
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FDLE Chief Resigns, Protesters Want Arrests In Beating Case (12 hours before the rally in Tallahassee)
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/arti ... Chief.html (http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/042206FDLEChief.html)
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TALLAHASSEE - Guy Tunnell abruptly ended his controversial run as head of Florida's Department of Law Enforcement on Thursday, days after sources said he made off-color remarks comparing black leaders who were to attend a Capitol rally to Osama bin Laden and Jesse James.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14392819.htm (http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14392819.htm)
Beating a kid to death is fine, but make a racial comment and YOU'RE OUTTA HERE!!!!! (not that I condone the comment but that [/i]prompts Bush to ask for his resignation and not kids dying left and right under this guy's command?)
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Two months worth of sheriff's office email RE: Boot-camp death deleted
State attorney: I'm not trying to hide anything in Martin Lee Anderson case
http://www.tdo.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articl ... 010/NEWS01 (http://www.tdo.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060419/NEWS01/604190318/1010/NEWS01)
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Beating a kid to death is fine, but make a racial comment and YOU'RE OUTTA HERE!!!!! (not that I condone the comment but that prompts Bush to ask for his resignation and not kids dying left and right under this guy's command?)
Thats what pissed me off the most about that kids death. If he was white, hed be just another kid on Barbe's memorial page, another tear shed, another notch in the belt of ToughLove? but because hes black, it would seem the race card got played and something got done. :roll:
Its such PC bullshit man... people should care because hes another kid who got killed by a fucked up system, not because hes a black kid who got killed by the system.
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http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/ ... 408446.htm (http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/news/politics/14408446.htm)
Boot camp inspections missed red flags
For years, Florida boot camps received high scores on state inspections, despite spiking use-of-force incidents.
BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
[email protected]
While oversight was breaking down, physical force incidents escalated.
Although guards at a Panama City boot camp routinely roughed up teenagers for minor infractions, state auditors for years praised the facility for its record-keeping, nursing care and use of physical force, rating the camp's performance ``commendable.''
The camp did so well in its 2004 inspection that it wasn't inspected at all last year -- despite 180 questionable use-of-force reports since January 2003. Guards physically punished youngsters for smiling, smirking, failing to complete exercises or other so-called ''insolent'' behaviors, records show.
The ''quality assurance'' audits, mandated by state law to ensure the facilities are safe and properly run, portray the Bay County Sheriff's Office Boot Camp as a Grade A operation. That changed Jan. 6, when 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson, charged with stealing his grandmother's car for a joyride, died after boot camp guards punched, kneed and choked him -- all captured on videotape.
A Miami Herald review of audits conducted by the Department of Juvenile Justice's Quality Assurance division found that inspectors for years failed to detect that guards were routinely violating state policies that banned use of force -- takedowns, chokeholds, pressure-point restraints -- except as a last resort.
NO ONE CHARGED
While oversight was breaking down, physical force incidents escalated, rising each year until they doubled in 2005.
No guards have been charged or fired. A special prosecutor appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee are investigating Martin's death. The Bay County boot camp was shut down in the aftermath.
GLOWING REPORTS
Time and again, auditors consistently found the camp to be in full compliance with regulations. Among the findings in the 2004 report:
? Inspectors judged the camp's exercise policies to be ''superior'' and ''administered in a safe, fair and consistent manner,'' adding that the boys would not be required to exercise beyond their ``endurance levels.''
''Interviews with five youth indicated that staff discuss with them their endurance levels and improvements,'' the report said. ``All youth indicated that they are in better shape now than when they arrived at the camp.''
Martin collapsed after complaining that he could no longer exercise, prompting guards to manhandle him for 40 minutes as the boot camp nurse stood by. The camp's own use-of-force report quoted Martin saying he ``was tired and couldn't breathe good enough to run any more.''
? The camp received superior scores for much of its medical care program. The 2004 report praised the camp's nurse for conducting quarterly or even monthly medical emergency drills and for being available for sick call more often than is required.
The nurse, Kristin Anne Schmidt, is under investigation by state medical regulators over claims that she stood by for 40 minutes without acting as guards roughed Martin up.
? The camp was rated superior for its compliance with DJJ rules that physical force, including so-called pressure points, be ``used as a last resort.''
''There is a written policy,'' the report said, ''that has been signed and dated within this review period that outlines all the requirements'' of the use-of-force standard. ``Whenever there is a physical intervention, a [use-of-force] report is written.''
? The camp also received a superior score for completing use-of-force reports for every incident in which guards did a ''takedown,'' pressure point or other restraint technique, such as a ''knee strike'' or ``bent wrist.''
''The reports were well documented and completed on the day of the incident,'' the report said.
SKIPPED INSPECTIONS
Previous audits at Bay County were even more cursory.
In 2002 and 2003, DJJ conducted one-day inspections of the camp. The reason: The camp had scored high marks in its 2001 inspection, allowing it to avoid a full review in subsequent years.
While audits were failing to find serious problems, force reports jumped from 27 in 2003 to 41 in 2004 to 99 last year. Cynthia Lorenzo, a spokeswoman for the Department of Juvenile Justice, which oversees the state's five boot camps, declined to discuss the agency's inspection program. She has previously said that ``the agency is committed to the safety and well being of youths in our care . . . We need to do better, we can do better and we will do more.''
SERIOUS INCIDENTS
But agency records show that as late as last October -- three months before Martin died -- top DJJ administrators knew that audits were failing to detect problems at DJJ facilities.
''There have been a series of situations where a program got a . . . high QA [quality assurance] score but something very serious then happened,'' DJJ Quality Assurance Chief John Criswell wrote his staff after a Central Florida youth died in custody. ``Are we too focused on paper and not enough on kids?''
Criswell said DJJ facilities were receiving high marks from inspectors at programs where a child eventually died and a mentally-retarded teenager was allegedly raped.
''With the [legislative] session coming up, I think you can see why there may be questions,'' Criswell wrote to other quality assurance administrators. ``Should we be doing more to follow up on negative responses to our surveys? Are there other changes that may alert us when bad things are about to happen?''
The next day, one DJJ quality assurance staffer, Mike Marino, defended the system in an e-mail: ``I don't think we can get away from the file reviews, as this is the main proof of something being done or not.''
The discrepancies between the inspection reports and conditions at DJJ's programs did not go unnoticed by a legislative watchdog group -- the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability -- which said in December 2003 that DJJ inspections bore ``little correlation with incidents such as escape or injury.''
POOR FOLLOW-UP
''Some program monitors are not always following up on indications of problems,'' the report said. ``When program monitors investigate complaints against programs, they should not only research the specific allegation but should also determine whether the problem is more widespread.''
Agency records show that the boot camp's DJJ program manager, Andy Anderson, received a copy by fax of all 180 use of force reports. The Miami Herald has repeatedly asked DJJ under the state's public records law whether Anderson ever alerted supervisors to the pattern of excessive force in Panama City.
Agency spokeswoman Lorenzo said DJJ is still looking for any alerts from Anderson, who would not comment.
One expert who has studied juvenile justice oversight in Florida and other states has repeatedly told DJJ administrators and Florida lawmakers that agency oversight efforts are flawed.
''Neither the current [quality assurance] program nor the research systems have served any type of diagnostic function whatsoever,'' said Thomas Blomberg, dean of Florida State University's College of Criminology and Criminal Justice. ``The accountability system is not holding programs accountable, and it's really more damning than that.''